Did you know Nishinomiya school lunches serve as many as “40,000 meals a day”?
This time, as one of those uniquely Nishinomiya menu items, Shachomi @ Nishi2 went to Hamawaki Junior High School to try kasujiru, so we’d like to share it with you〜
(This article came about thanks to “Usapi,” whose child absolutely loves kasujiru!)
Here it is on the map↓
The address is 3-5 Miyamae-cho, Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture.
目次
What do you mean, 40,000 meals?
Across Nishinomiya’s elementary and junior high schools, about 40,000 school lunches are served every day. That’s 40,000 people〜! What a number.
Is that a UFO?! No, it’s not. It’s a giant pot for filling the stomachs of growing junior high school students.
Apparently, these enormous pots are nicknamed “magic pots,” and somehow they turn out seriously delicious food.
The “School Lunch” at Hamawaki Junior High School
Ta-daaaaaa✨ It’s kasujiru〜〜〜〜
Nishinomiya junior high school lunch 325 yenThe side dishes were slightly upsized for us, and the tea was complimentary. (From April, the price will be revised to 360 yen. Still cheap!)
Wait, doesn’t this look way too delicious?!!!!!
We’re having lunch here in the principal’s office〜. How do you even read “慮る”? lol
These easy-to-eat little cubes are sweet-and-savory simmered yellowtail〜〜
Now then, time to eat
Look at that thickness.
It’s so satisfying! Man〜 it almost feels unfair that you can eat something this labor-intensive at school lunch〜〜〜
Rice has been getting expensive lately. With side dishes like this, it goes down way too easily(hakado)!! Can’t stop, won’t stop
Sesame-dressed vegetables! Junior high schoolers probably eat this like it’s nothing, but 30 years later they’ll be thinking, “I should’ve appreciated that more”〜
After cooling down with the sesame-dressed vegetables, the next move is to warm back up with kasujiru.
The school lunch kasujiru includes miso, so it looks like miso soup.
But it has daikon, carrots, konjac, fried tofu, and other proper kasujiru ingredients.
There’s also chikuwa, pork, and green onions. It’s absolutely packed with ingredients〜. School lunches for Miyakko kids are luxurious〜
With one sip, the aroma of sake lees gently spreads〜〜〜. This time, they used sake lees from Nihonsakari.
Apparently the paper cartons have been used since around 2005, and the amount has stayed the same at 200 ml since long ago〜. Back in the day it was glass milk bottles, and the caps would fall inside and cause all kinds of trouble〜
What the Principal Does 30 Minutes Before Lunch
Oh, to keep school lunches safe, there’s something Nishinomiya principals do for school lunch.
Do you know what it is?
“That’s right, I do it every day,” says Principal Sasaki.
“Wait, so that means…?”
“Yes, every day I do a ‘poison tasting’!”
Poison tasting〜〜〜〜!!
Actually, to keep school lunches safe, 30 minutes before serving, the principal or school nurse performs (not actually poison tasting)a “meal inspection（kenshoku）”〜. Specifically, they carefully check things like:
✔ Whether any ingredients have gone bad
✔ Whether any foreign objects have gotten mixed in
✔ Whether the taste is off
If there’s a problem, the system is set up so everything stops immediately. So yeah, it really is poison tasting. Principals are putting themselves on the line! By the way, apparently nothing has ever happened〜 reassuring!
School Lunch Favorites That Never Change, and Mysterious Menu Items
By the way, when I said, “I want to eat kasujiru〜,” the person from the Nishinomiya Board of Education who set everything up at lightning speed was Toshiki Adachi〜. He’s the reliable big-brother type who always teaches us all kinds of things about schools.
He used to be the principal of Municipal Higashi High School, so some of you may have thought, “Oh! It’s the principal!!”
While eating kasujiru with Mr. Adachi, we got into all kinds of school lunch stories, so I asked him about the ever-popular menu items, both now and back then.
