Feeding the Nation: How Japan’s School Lunches Changed Through the Twentieth Century

A monument to Japan’s first school lunches in Tsuruoka, Yamagata. (© School Lunch History Museum)

A re-creation of the first school lunch with salted rice balls, salted salmon, and pickled greens. (© Japan Sport Council)

A re-creation of the first postwar school lunch, consisting of tomato stew and reconstituted powdered milk. (© Japan Sport Council)

The Postwar Spread of School Lunches in Japan

A re-creation of a 1952 school lunch with a bread roll, made-up powdered milk, and deep-fried whale. (© Japan Sport Council)

A re-creation of a 1965 school lunch including bottled milk and soft noodles. (© Japan Sport Council)

Elementary school students eating lunches including rice in Mashiko, Tochigi, in 1978. (© Japan Sport Council)

With the introduction of rice in lunches, cooking it was outsourced to bread factories. Photograph from 1978. (© Japan Sport Council)