You might already know that a bento is a type of box lunch popular in Japan, and you might also be familiar with kyaraben, a type of bento where food is arranged to look like recognizable people, characters, plants, or animals. The container is shallow and the lid is designed to help hold the food in place. Some parents use these cute meals to get their kids to eat healthier foods by making it look cool. (Hey, it worked when my parents would get me to eat ten pancakes at a clip by drawing a smiley face on them with chocolate and whipped butter. That was super healthy, and I still have most of my original internal organs to prove it.)
With that said, designer Heather Sitarzewski decided to try out bentos with pop culture characters for her son this school year. (We should note her son is not a picky eater or the kind of kid who flips out when food is touching.) After posting some pictures of her bentos on Facebook, her friends asked her to start a blog, and we’re assuming they meant that in the nice, encouraging way rather than the sarcastic “get a blog” way. Anyway, Sitarzewski collected all the photos at Lunchbox Awesome, which we learned about after Boing Boing tipped us off to it last night.
We’ve collected our favorite 30 lunches here. It’s all so very pinteresting.
I would destroy this lunch.
He speaks for the cheese.
Hey, that’s a great re-creation of Morgan Freeman’s vampire bath song.
ಠ_ಠ There isn’t a yellow-masked ninja turtle.
Not pictured: his pants (because he never wears any)
I want Morgan Freeman to narrate these penguins’ march into my stomach.
This bento tried to sell me an annuity.