第十六章

11 March 2011 12:20

Finally, we had made it through to lunchtime! I was glad that my stomach hadn’t been rumbling too loudly during the last lesson as I was really enjoying myself and didn’t want it to distract me, or my classmates. As Kinoshita-sensei rolled the television and DVD player back into the corner of the room he spoke to the class over his shoulder.

‘Whose turn it is to serve lunch today?’ he asked and six arms shot up into the air, accompanied by shouts of ‘Hai.’

‘Thank you,’ he continued. ‘Please go and wash your hands.’

They stood up and walked out of the front door of the classroom, returning in convoy a few moments later all with slightly wet hands as if to prove that they really had done as they were told and not just pretended, especially the boys.  Kinoshita-sensei was waiting for their return and handed out an apron, hat and mask to each. I always thought that the aprons had a medical look to them as they were made from the same thin, light blue material that you would see worn by the nurses and doctors in hospitals.

‘Thank you. Now will four of you, and the group can decide who, go down the old kitchen to collect today’s food?’ Kinoshita-sensei added.

After a brief conversation, all three of the boys in today’s group, Kaito, Takumi and Hiroki together with one girl, Natsumi, went down the six flights of stairs to the former kitchen that was towards the back of the school.

In the years before I had started at Ōfunato Elementary, the food had been prepared on site by a team of cooks who were employed by the local council. However, this was no longer the case and the food was now cooked centrally by a company called “Ōfunato Kyūshoku Service” and then delivered to all the schools in the local area. Okāsan had said that there was a time that my school had a reputation for the best meals in town as one of the cooks had previously worked as a chef in Tokyo and added a personal touch to the menus that he was asked to prepare. I have always liked school dinners, although some of my classmates would disagree with my view. My only complaint is that by the time the food arrives in the classroom it is sometimes a little cold.

Whilst they were gone, the two remaining helpers, Yuka and Asuka, put up tables at the front of the classroom from where the group of six would serve the food. The rest of us put away our belongings from the last lesson and went to fetch our chopsticks from our school bags. My chopstick set had a Mickey Mouse design; Okāsan had bought for me when we visited Tokyo Disneyland last summer. As I laid out a handkerchief across my desk, I was really hungry and wished that they would hurry up with the food.

‘Now, everybody else, please go and wash your hands before our helpers arrive back,’ Kinoshita-sensei said.

There was a general hubbub as the remaining twenty-two of us set off to wash our hands in the metal trough sinks that lined the corridors before returning – with some hands cleaner than others – to our desks.  Natsumi and Hiroki entered the classroom carrying the insulated blue box that had Ōfunato Kyūshoku Centre written on the side and which contained one class’s worth of rice. They were followed by Takumi who carried the plastic bucket full of miso soup and lastly Kaito who entered with the deep metal tray that held our gobō chicken. Two year four boys from one of the other classrooms suddenly rushed into the room.

‘Excuse me, Kinoshita-sensei, but we’ve been asked to bring the milk as there were not enough people to carry these as well as the food,’ one of the boys said as together they placed the crate down on the table

‘Oh, thank you very much. That’s my fault, I didn’t realise that there was so much to carry. Please say thank you to Onuma-sensei from me.’

‘Hai,’ came the reply from both as they rushed out again.

Yuka and Asuka took it upon themselves to pass the milk out to us, walking up and down the rows of desks handing out the small glass bottles. The four others had put down and opened the lids of the rice, miso soup and gobō chicken and were waiting, ready to serve. We went in rows and I was in the second one to go, my stomach making a gurgling noise as I stood up. I picked up a tray from the stack that was sitting on the right hand side of the serving tables and moved along collecting my dishes as I went. I wondered if Hiroki had heard my stomach as he gave me an extra helping of rice with a knowing look on his face which made me go slightly red but I was still grateful as I got disappointed when given small portions. The miso soup smelt nice but seemed to lack much besides the miso although unusually it was still steaming so I thought that it must be nice and warm. Finally, the gobō chicken, which was individually wrapped in foil and cooked in a teriyaki sauce,  passed to me on a small plate with some green beans on the side. I walked carefully back to my desk and placed the tray of food gently on top of the handkerchief that I had laid out earlier.

Now was the difficult part. We couldn’t start eating until everyone had their food and Kinoshita-sensei led us into saying itadakimasu. This always seemed to take forever and was like torture as the food’s smells mixed and twirled in front of me before dancing into my nose. Hurry up, hurry up, I thought. Finally, everyone was ready.

Itadakimasu ‘Let’s eat,’ said Kinoshita-sensei.

‘Itadakimasu,’ echoed the students, loudly.I opened up my chopstick set, enjoying the satisfying click as the case came open.  Taking out my chopsticks and holding them in my right hand, I picked up the bowl of miso soup with my left and gave it a stir to remix the miso and the broth together. I then brought the bowl to my mouth and took a long sip. Although not brimming with aburaage fried tofu and naganegi Japanese leeks there was enough in there now that I had stirred it to make this more than just a plain liquid soup. Not as good as Okāsan’s but not bad at all. Having drunk about a third of the miso soup, I then wanted to get a bite of the gobō chicken that was still wrapped in foil. Fortunately, it wasn’t too hot and I was able to undo the package fairly easily after which I folded up the foil and put it to one side on the tray. The five pieces of gobō burdock stood upright like thin cylinders and you could make out the fibres of the plant if you looked closely enough. The colour was close to white in the middle darkening gradually through to the light brown of the outside of the root.

Holding them in place were thin cuts of chicken thigh wrapped tightly around the burdock. The teriyaki sauce pooled around the bottom and mixed slightly with the green beans which would give them a better flavour. I picked up the chicken with my chopsticks and took a bite, it was delicious; the chicken was moist and fell apart in my mouth. However, my favourite bit was the burdock which had a naturally smoky taste to it, made even smokier by the teriyaki sauce. Taking my time over each mouthful, I chewed the recommended twenty times before swallowing. I must have been making a real point of enjoying the meal as when I looked towards Haruka she was staring back at me with a grin on her face, watching me as I ate.

‘Delicious!’ I mouthed across to her.

‘It looks like it!’ Haruka mouthed back.

Being so far north, we got some wonderful rice in Ōfunato as the climate was not too different from Akita Prefecture which was famous in Japan for its rice and sake rice wine. Even in our school dinners, it was of good quality and cooked very well considering how much they must be making for all the elementary and junior high schools in Ōfunato. I lifted up the bowl and breathed in the sweet aroma from the steam that drifted upwards from the short pearly-white coloured grains. Taking a scoop with my chopsticks, the sticky grains of rice clung to each other and I was able to get a good mouthful which I again chewed nice and slowly.

Around me, many of my classmates had eaten all of their lunch and were popping open the cardboard lids on their milk. I also noticed that there had been some trading going on; Kaito who was not so keen on milk had swapped with Hiroki who had quite loudly pronounced shortly after starting that he did not fancy eating the chicken. Kinoshita-sensei was keen on getting his students to eat everything that was on offer for the day but did turn a blind eye when trading of this kind took place as long as it didn’t get out of hand. I remember once he got cross when Rikimaru ended up with four bottles of milk on his tray as he had given away all of his food. On that occasion, Kinoshita-sensei had made everyone return Rikimaru’s food and then gave us a lecture on the importance of a balanced diet.

About five minutes later, I had finished eating and set to work opening my milk. There were two ways that you could get the cardboard lid off: either push it down on one side with your thumb until the cardboard rotated so that you could pull it out with your thumb and forefinger or pick at the edge of the cardboard with your fingernail until enough of the lid had lifted up to grip and prise off gently. The first of these was the quickest, and therefore the more popular method, but it was risky. I always opted for the slower method as every time I tried to push the cardboard down into the neck of the bottle I was unable to control the force and ended with my thumb diving into the milk or occasionally even knocking over the whole bottle. It was nicely chilled and as I drank I could feel the milk sliding down my throat and into my stomach.

Gochisōsama deshita ‘That was a feast,’ I said quietly to myself as I put down the empty bottle onto my tray. I was the last in the class to finish and was getting some glares from those who wanted to go outside to play.

‘Now that everyone has finished, please put your chopsticks back in their cases and take them home to be washed,’ Kinoshita-sensei said. ‘Starting from my right, so your left, please bring your trays to the front of the class and help to tidy things away.’

In turn, we filtered to the front to tip uneaten food into the miso soup bucket, stacking bowls, plates and trays neatly to be taken back downstairs by today’s helpers.

‘Before you go outside,’ Kinoshita-sensei added, ‘please note that we will  be leaving here at one forty-five so please be back in the classroom at one-thirty to give us time to get ready and wrap ourselves up properly. The sun may have started shining but it’s still cold and you will feel it even more once we get down to the water’s edge.’

***

…blessed barbels…

…what a design…

…great for searching out food…

…bloody terrible things to have when you’re trapped by a stone…

…think he’s coming back…

…one last tug…

…heave-ho…