Luxury Lunchboxes Have Their Moment (Part Two)
Or what I’m calling “luxboxes.”
As suggested in my last article, with more people opting to bring delicious meals made at home into the office for lunch, the time has come to consider luxury lunchboxes (“luxboxes”) as the ideal form of culinary transport. While the idea of bringing an upscale lunchbox to work may be new to much of contemporary Western society, many Asian cultures have long since adopted the benefits of carrying and enjoying a tasty home-cooked lunchtime meal at work.
Take the ubiquitous bento box in Japan, which now can be found in many Japanese restaurants and takeaway shops throughout the US and EU. Although Japanese bento appears to have originated in the 12th century (Kamakura period) as a way of bringing cooked and dried rice to work in bags, the wooden lacquered boxes now associated with bento did not develop until the 16th century (Edo period). And only in the late 19th century (Meiji period) does it appear that the first ekibento (“train station bento”), which reportedly contained onigiri (“rice balls”) and pickled radish wrapped in bamboo leaves, were being sold to passengers.
As lunchtime bento in Japan expanded to employees, students, and teachers in the early 20th century (Taisho period), aluminum boxes, which were easier to clean than wood, became a status symbol among the upper classes based on their resemblance to silver. Later in the 20th century, with microwave ovens making it easier to reheat meals, bento box meals experienced increased use across social strata in Japan.
While bento sold in Japanese convenience stores may be packaged in cheap disposable plastics, reusable wood and metal boxes containing homemade bento remain popular for lunch among workers and students alike. Indeed, many Japanese homemakers create elaborate and time-consuming bento box meals to be carried by family members to work or school. These bentos typically contain a rice or noodle dish, meat or fish, and pickled or cooked vegetables. There are even contests in Japan where prizes are awarded for creating and arranging the tastiest and most attractive bento box meals.
Beyond Japan, upscale boxed lunches also can be found in China (biandang), Taiwan (pian-tong), and Korea (dosirak). For example, Korean dosirak are usually plastic or insulated stainless steel containers (although lacquered wood, ceramic, and bamboo may be used) that are tiered or compartmentalized and contain bap (“rice”) and banchan (“side dishes”). The banchan may include meat or fish, as well as soup, egg, kimchi and less traditional dishes.
And of course there are the tiered tiffin carriers (dabbas), which originated and can be found in major cities in India and now have spread to urban areas of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Perhaps best recognized (especially among fans of Indian film) are the dabbawalas (or tiffin wallahs) of Mumbai, who have developed a highly sophisticated, efficient, and punctual system for hand delivering hot, tasty lunchtime meals in stainless steel or aluminum dabbas from suburban homes to city offices. Pre-pandemic, it was estimated that there were roughly 5,000 tiffin wallahs delivering daily to Mumbai office workers over 200,000 dabba lunches, which typically contain a traditional homemade thali meal of spicy curry, naan bread, yoghurt, pickles, and dessert.
Which brings us to the West. While fancy, prepackaged picnic hampers containing meats, cheeses and wines have long been available for sale at luxury shops in the UK and elsewhere, the time is ripe for an upscale tiered or compartmentalized luxbox that can be used daily to store and carry home cooked meals. As in Asia, the container should be eco-friendly, easy-to-clean and, to help increase usage, stylish.
Looking online, there are already a large number of vendors manufacturing and selling deluxe tiffin carriers and luxury lunchboxes to the growing population of at-home chefs in the US and the EU. Perhaps only a matter of time before these functional and attractive mass-produced models are upstaged by fashion design companies looking to “cash in” on expected growth in this luxury good market. If so, can “Dabbas by Dior” or “Tiffany’s Tiffins” be too far behind? Time will tell.
Danilo Diazgranados is an investor, collector, and lover of fine wines and a member of the prestigious Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, a fraternity of Burgundy wine enthusiasts.
