My sister has a complicated relationship with potatoes. As far as she is concerned, they are only acceptable in a few choice forms: French frites (no chunky chips, thank you, too potato-y), crushed with copious amounts of olive oil and salt, or diced and roasted with piles of crispy golden onions - an Italian speciality from our Nonna. All other preparations (such as boiled, roasted or mashed) are strictly hors de menu in our house. These predilections have perhaps had less impact on my family as they might your average Brits, due to our widespread ethnic roots. With Italians, Maltese(rs), Syrians and Greeks on one side and Iraqis on the other, rice, pasta and pitta have always made up the majority of our carbohydrate intake. (Although I do hasten to point out my allegiance to the flag via my wholehearted devotion to oats.) As a result, we rarely buy potatoes, that mighty staple of the Great British Diet.

In all honesty, I have never felt that we were really missing out. Quite frankly, enduring a year of university catering, in which potatoes appeared in all manner of horrendous guises three times a day, was enough to put me off eating them for a lifetime. I couldn't really understand the feelings of comfort and warmth that potatoes seem to generate in my countrymen and women. I mean, they're fine, but are they really worth getting gooey and emotional over?

After reading the umpteenth potato paean in a newspaper this May (when the food world goes weak at the knees over the arrival of the first Jersey Royals) I concluded that I probably needed to give the humble tuber a chance. But how to sneak them into the trolley without my sister noticing? And, more importantly, how to prepare them in a way that wouldn't generate noises of disapproval? I was stumped. And so, naturally, I did nothing. But two months on, and several days into my recipe challenge, I decided that enough was enough. It was time to bring spuds to the kitchen.

At the time, my sister was in the throes of revision, spending hour after hour poring over complex-looking medical textbooks. She told me on numerous occasions that meals were the highlights of her day. No pressure, then. I realised that the only way to make potatoes acceptable to her was to include them in a meal full of her favourite things, and, if nothing else, to dress them in a mixture so thick with spice and flavour as to render them practically unrecognisable.

An English meal was out of the question (far too conspicuous) and so, perhaps counter-intuitively, I opted for Middle Eastern. I have no recollection of eating potatoes with my Arabic relatives other than Aunt Bessie's Easy Roasties, so external help was required. I turned to Marlene Matar, a Lebanese chef who has recently published a brilliant anthology of Syrian food in English. The book features a recipe for a basic potato salad, describing it as the kind of staple dish that can be altered and played with to suit the tastes and larder of the cook.

Matar does not specify a type of potato, and so, in a nod to drooling food writers everywhere, I bought my first ever bag of jersey royals. The first problem was working out how many to cook: how to ensure that we were not left with piles of potentially unappealing leftovers to make our way through? It took an embarrassingly long time to decide, as, not being seasoned potato-eaters, we were unsure of how many we would eat. Eventually we came to a decision and I tipped them resolutely into a pan of boiling salted water, jammed on the lid, and waited. Watching potatoes boil is about as enthralling as watching someone painting a fence, so I turned my back on the stove and focused on the important bit: the dressing.



Middle Eastern food suffers from the connotation that it is extremely complex and full of obscure, hard to pronounce ingredients. While there are numerous dishes that really do require hours of hard labour in the kitchen (forming kibbeh, or rolling vine leaves, for example) many staple dishes are, in fact, very simple, relying solely on quality ingredients, one or two choice spices and fresh herbs. Matar's potato salad is no exception; the seasoning requires only cumin, allspice and Aleppo pepper, with plenty of lemon juice, olive oil, and a handful of parsley. It's ready in a cinch, and you can make it in the serving dish - ideal for those of us sans dishwashers.

Unfortunately, my ever-expanding spice collection does not yet extend to Aleppo pepper (nor ras el hanout, zhoug paste or noomi basra, but I'm working on it) and so I opted for Matar's helpful suggested substitute - paprika. The result was a terracotta-coloured dressing, ever so slightly smoky, with a nice bite from the cumin and depth from the allspice. I politely ignored the inclusion of chopped white onions, as, until I can guarantee as sweet an allium as those that are sold in the Middle East, I would rather spare myself the discomfort of tasting nothing else for the next 12 hours. The spring onions worked fine on their own, though, their sharpness foiled by the addition of diced red pepper.

Back on the hob, the potatoes gurgled and spurted out jets of starchy steam. Concluding that this was a sign they'd had enough, I drained them and set about the tricksy task of chopping them while still hot, flinging them into the dressing with red, blistering fingers. Upon tasting I decided (as I often do) that it needed more of everything, and so, with faithful recipe allegiance now thrown decisively out the window, I began to re-season it maniacally. Soon the potatoes had taken on a burnished red colour, their flesh softened and glossy in the oil. They certainly did not look like any other potatoes I'd ever seen, nor did the flavour bear any resemblance to the non-descript starchiness with which I associated them. Instead, they offered a creaminess and unexpected sweetness, contrasting nicely with the vibrancy of the dressing. It was a moreish and (yes, I admit it) surprisingly comforting combination.

To avoid total disaster should my sister not agree, I went overboard with the rest of the meal, serving the salad alongside wonky rings of aubergine, griddled and marinated with herbs, smoky-salty flat beans and a spiced lentil stew that I made up as I went along. We sat down, my sister's forehead wrinkled in mild distrust. She picked up the dish and inhaled. "Smells interesting," she said in her I'm-trying-to-sound-positive-but-what-on-earth-have-you-done voice. Ever cautious, she served herself a scant tablespoon of potatoes while I looked on nervously, face flushed and clothes spattered.

I am pleased to report that after careful consideration, my discerning diner agreed that, although boiled, these were potatoes like no other. There was nothing to be done about the texture (still a major sticking point), but the flavour got a resolute thumbs up. This I considered a victory, and perhaps an entry point into an exciting new world of potato-cookery. Who knows what delights are now in-store? "Don't go getting any ideas," she warned me, swiftly cleaning up her second portion. "I still don't like potatoes." But then she moved on to thirds, so I'm feeling quietly optimistic.

Day Two: Sunday 25 June

The strangest ideas occur to you in the middle of the night. High on the success of my first new recipe attempt, I lay awake in bed, trying to recall the name of a dessert that my Iraqi grandmother used to make. Why I was thinking of dates mashed with spices at 2 in the morning is a mystery, but once the idea was embedded I couldn't shake it off.

A quick conversation with my dad confirmed the name that had escaped me: halawi, a play on the Arabic word halwa meaning sweet (both noun and adjective) and halawiat, a generic term for dessert. Both words cover all manner of spreadable, sugary delights, but the recipe in question comprised (to the best of my memory) of melted dates that are mixed with fennel seeds and left to cool to form a thick, fragrant paste. My grandmother (Bibi, in Arabic) always kept it in an ancient Carte D'Or ice cream tub, and would bring it out at the end of a meal for a final, sweet hit. You can eat it on its own or with khobez bread, but my family have always preferred to spread it thickly on plain crackers, such as Bibi's cherished water biscuits. This is a delicate business, as halawi is solid stuff; put too much pressure on the knife and the whole thing is liable to crack into a hundred fragments, leaving you with sticky fingers and a lap full of crumbs.

I'll be the first to admit that, as a child, I couldn't stand halawi: why would you ever want to ruin dates with something as yucky as fennel? And why did it smell so much? No, I only wanted choc-ice for dessert, thank you, and so would turn my nose up at halawi whenever it was offered. Meanwhile, my dad reached for cracker after cracker, lost in nostalgia for a time when he could eat it every day, when the dates came, not wrapped in clingfilm, but in baskets, fresh from the back garden.

Unsurprisingly, my dad's memory extended only to his experiences of eating halawi, not to its preparation, and so I called Bibi to get the recipe first hand. To my relief, she seemed to have no recollection of my disdain for the dish (or was at least polite enough not to mention it), but was instead delighted to hear that I was interested in making it. When I asked if she would give me the recipe she laughed and said "there isn't one". Halawi is one of those family dishes that is always present in the kitchen in some form or other, but is so well known, and has so many variations, that no one has ever felt it necessary to write the recipe down. It turns out that the fennel seeds, my defining memory of the sweet, are by no means obligatory (I had to prompt her to mention them at all) and that sesame seeds and rosewater are also optional. In a final traditional-family-recipe cliché, after hanging up the phone I realised that Bibi had neglected to pass on any instructions related to measurements. You use the dates you have and tailor everything accordingly. That's it.


So off I trotted into the kitchen, the recipe in my head, as it seemed in the spirit of the dish not to need to write anything. There was a squashy packet of Medjool dates lodged at the back of the cupboard, and I pitted them in turn, a slow but surprisingly therapeutic task, even though it makes your fingers a gooey mess. As I worked I imagined how different it would have been to make halawi in Bibi's tiled kitchen in Baghdad, homemade yoghurt dripping gently in a corner, molasses boiling on the stove, with the hot desert sun burning relentlessly through the open window. Back in drizzly Britain, I tipped the fruit into a frying pan on a gentle heat, prodding it impatiently with a wooden spoon to encourage it to soften. Little by little the unfortunately brown and sticky pile began to give, rendering a textured paste to which I added ground ginger and fennel seeds. I neglected to add the traditional cardamom as I didn't have any, and, unlike my Iraqi  relatives, don't see the need to add it to every dish in the kitchen. (Sorry, Dad). Merely opening the bottle of rosewater reminded me of dinners at Bibi's house, where it makes its way into all sorts of dishes, even plain boiled rice. Only a drop is enough to scent the entire kitchen, and my sister (whose superior olfactory capabilities make her the ultimate recipe tester) came along to investigate.

Teaspoons in hand, we carved away at the unattractive-yet-fragrant brown blob, and closed our eyes to taste it, trying to work out what was missing. After much deliberation, and adding a little bit more of everything, we concluded that it tasted good. Not the same as Bibi's, but good all the same. As I scooped it up into an appropriately battered plastic tub to harden, it occurred to me that the curse of the inherited family recipe is that, no matter how hard you try, no matter how strict a recipe you follow, it will quite simply never taste the same as you remember. Food is bound up in so much more than just method and ingredients: flavour is tied to feeling, to fellow diners and the environment in which a meal is shared. It's true that this realisation can leave you, like Proust, bitterly disappointed that the taste of youth cannot be experienced anew, but sometimes I think it's for the best. The past is a different country; ultimately, what matters is the here and now. After all, six-year-old me couldn't stand Bibi's halawi. But my own? Well, 20-something me likes it just fine.  

Something in the air has changed. After months of skin-pinching chill, the mercury has finally climbed and I can leave the flat without a coat. The light is different, the sun feels warmer, and, at long last, the bounty of summer is beginning to appear on our tables. And I have gone a little bit crazy. Perhaps it's the result of months of waiting through an interminable-seeming winter, but now that summer is truly here I am determined to make the most of it and not waste an ounce of sun-ripened goodness.

Historical and emotional significance aside, the fact that packed lunches are a daily routine for much of the British working population makes office canteens ideal locations for examining the current social and culinary landscape. Enter the pantry at 1.30 and your nose will be assaulted by a cacophony of smells emanating from the microwaves: last night's sausages and mash, soups of varying colours, dollops of shepherd's pie and questionable variations of curries and stews. Not forgetting, of course, the leagues of sandwich eaters - unwrapping parcels of baps, pittas and sliced white at their desks. By looking at peoples' choices it is possible to identify key trends shaping modern diets, as well as examining the cultural and social traditions that have influenced their food.

As with every meal, what someone chooses to pack for lunch is hugely indicative of their personality and their relationship with food. The excessively organised (exquisitely presented foods, carefully portioned and planned with Koolpak), the bulk-cookers or leftover-lovers (usually chilli with rice, or indistinguishable dishes that always seem to include peas), the undomesticated 20-somethings (piles of cold spaghetti with pesto,brought in a supermarket carrier bag) and those who forget or have no time to prepare, and so shop over lunch and perch on the crumb-laden worktops, attempting to "build" their meals: cranking open tins of tuna, and spooning out sad dollops of cottage cheese.

Thank you @ikeauk for making the most perfect lunch boxes for #aldesko days! #joyofstorage… https://t.co/1JWIWW54fI pic.twitter.com/Pes5yjoyEM

— Chloe (@chloelikes2talk) July 12, 2016

Many diners opt for the same food every day, choosing the comfort and security of routine over the challenge of coming up with new ideas. In a recent survey, 77% of participants admitted to eating the same lunch for the last nine months, with 58% saying they'd been doing it for as long as they could remember. (Unsurprisingly, ham sandwiches were the most common culprit.) Some of us may wring our hands in exasperation at the thought of such monotony, but for many, repetition just works. My cousin has eaten a bagel with Dairylea cheese every day for 15 years, and insists he is neither bored, nor dissatisfied. Habits are cemented over a lifetime that can be hard to shift: after all, we like what we know. Furthermore, not having to decide what to eat removes one more decision from our choice-saturated and time-restricted lives. Even though participants in the survey admitted to being bored with the meal, 7 out of 10 said they opted for repetition to save time.

As such, an increasing number of people are opting to buy food daily, rather than bringing it with them. Not, as with our Victorian predecessors, due to a lack of resources, space or access to food,  but rather a lack of interest or time. And given the fact that there are probably more branches of Pret A Manger per square mile of London than public toilets or post boxes, it is understandable that, rather than opting for a cheese and pickle roll every day, you would rather spend £3, £4 or £5 buying a hot pulled pork bap, an elegant box of sushi or a steaming pot of soup. In this context, choice can be exciting, and we revel in the opportunity to buy whatever we fancy, without feeling restricted by our culinary skill, our families or the content of the fridge.

AAA = @abokadouk & @attendantcafe addiction. Send help (no wait, send more!) #aldesko http://t.co/gVnIqtUQ8F pic.twitter.com/1f971RmIwT

— GastroGays (@GastroGays) September 11, 2015

Even so, only a few people can keep up the pace of picking new foodstuffs to try every lunchtime. Work in one place for long enough and you'll have tried everything available in the local area - you'll know what your favourites are. Afraid of disappointment, you start picking what you know - buying the same sandwich every day rather than making it, feeling secure in the knowledge that it will be tasty (or, at least, familiarly bland) and will satisfy.

This search for familiarity is particularly evident in the staggering number of people who opt for supermarket ready meals every day. For every person reheating a home made curry, there are at least four more warming a ready-portioned fish, cottage or shepherd's pie; British classics, with reliable, dependable flavours. Despite the boom of juices, sandwich thins and salad jars, it would appear that a desire to follow the trend only goes so far where lunch is concerned. You could argue that this habit once again highlights the fact that many of us do not consider the packed lunch as a meal with the same value as others (no need for extra effort or imagination), or, alternatively, that we rely on it so highly to provide us with the comfort to see us through to the end of the day that we cannot bear to try anything new, for fear of disappointment.

The environment in which the packed lunch is consumed also influences attitudes towards it. Is it eaten alone, or in company? In the canteen, on a park bench, or at your keyboard? Eating together can make it an enjoyable, sociable occasion, lending the packed lunch a positive connotation of friends, conversation and free time. If eaten in isolation, it can feel the pinnacle of loneliness; a sad meal, a pitying distraction from the grind of the working day. Surrounded by groups of chatting colleagues, nibbling a salad alone at a canteen table can be depressing enough to avoid it altogether, and stick to "al desko", where, with focus dominated by the work at hand, you may barely notice your packed lunch at all. It becomes a meaningless ritual, a necessary habit.

LUNCH CHALLENGE: Whose lunch is more boring than mine? #aldesko pic.twitter.com/HRO2fB6WiU

— WeAreBne / James (@WeAreBrisbane) July 29, 2015

So what does this teach us about the packed lunch? It is a meal of contradictions: both an expression of independence and a search for childhood comforts, to keep you feeling safe and coddled until it's time to go home. It may be seen as a opportunity to showcase one's culinary skill, or to avoid it at all costs. For some, it represents the opportunity to escape work and focus on the real world, either alone or in company. For others, it is simply a ritual that must be dispensed with in order to continue with the day. If eating is considered primarily a social occasion, this meal specifically designed for one may be seen as automatically inferior to all others, especially when it is so heavily associated with the world of work. Alternatively, a sense of childhood glee can remain, with this mono-portioned feast seeming like nothing short of a present.

As with any meal, with each bite we are interacting with our cultural and social history, although, in Britain, this is perhaps rarely at the forefront of our minds as we bite into our favourite sandwich. What is clear is that we should not regard the packed lunch as a mere pit-stop in between two meals with greater nutritional and social importance: its unique position as a meal prepared ahead of time, portioned solely for one, arguably provides greater insight than all other meals into the way we and our society feel about food. I truly believe that it is worth our attention.

For many of us, packed lunches have an automatic association with school: either as a daily occurrence or as a special feature of geography field trips. The impact of the childhood packed lunch on our adult selves and eating habits ought not to be underestimated, as, being the only meal of the day eaten without parental supervision, it becomes fertile ground for shaping attitudes to food.

School dinners began in earnest in the late 19th century, when it was discovered that poor pupils were not gaining sufficient nutrition at home to adequately equip them for a day of study. From 1906 schools could offer meals, and from 1907 these meals had to meet government-approved nutritional standards. As detested as they often were, canteen meals were a cheap (or even free) way to get a hot meal down thousands of young people every lunchtime. By the 70s, however, students were able to bring their food with them, and the trend gained popularity in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher, who increased the cost of school meals, It is now estimated that about half of students opt for a packed lunch, at a cost of almost £1 billion to the nation's parents.

In the 70s and 80s, school packed lunches would largely feature homemade sandwiches, with perhaps the occasional sausage roll or scotch egg. By the 1990s, the concept of "kid food" was becoming well established: bite sized, fun-shaped morsels of processed food thought to appeal to children's capricious tastes. As Bee Wilson notes in First Bite, in reality this means processed carbohydrates, sugars, dairy and salt,  thought to recreate the simplicity and comfort of nursery food. So came the likes of snacks such as Pombears, Cheese Strings and Dairylea Lunchables. Sugar-laden "fruit bites", squashes and fizzy drinks also began to feature, promising "no artificial preservatives" but offering negligible nutritional content or energy for learning. If the meals of childhood set up our tastes for the future (and Wilson is emphatic that they do) then it is unsurprising that millennials are opting for ready-made lunches as adults, filled with the processed flavours to which they are accustomed, rather than creating​ something from scratch.



The school packed lunch is crucial in developing attitudes to food because of the environment in which it is consumed. For reasons of logistics, packed-lunch eaters are often segregated from their hot-dinner peers, meaning that a good portion of the lunch hour is dedicated not only to eating your own meal, but also to looking at everyone else's.

I like to think of the packed lunch room at my own school as something of a microcosm of the wider world, a place where the hierarchy of the classroom really came into play. When we were 9 there was a rota for sitting next to the most popular girl, who was  smart, rich and athletic and ate, as far as I can recall, meals made up almost entirely of grapes and melon slices. Without the social-equalising element of the hot dinner (when everyone, regardless of wealth, is forced to eat the same slop) everyone's packed lunch reflected their personality and background: my German friend brought salami sandwiches and chocolate-filled brioche, the neat-as-a-pin class brainbox brought perfectly portioned rolls, with a pre-halved kiwi and spoon. There was the girl who ate only grated cheese sandwiches on fluffy white bread and another who never wanted to eat anything at all, who would nibble dolefully on a Golden Delicious for 45 minutes. We looked and copied one another, demanding from our parents the same snacks and treats we saw in other girls' meals. We shaped our eating habits around each other, reevaluating and fine tuning our preferences according to what was considered the best way or coolest thing to eat. (And this habit continues in adulthood: women are constantly asking​ one another about their lunch choices, eyeing up the next soup and salad trend that could enliven the never ending weight loss struggle.)

As whitewashed, bland and unpleasant-smelling as the packed lunch room was, eating there felt like being part of a special club; as though, by consuming our own food, rather than that intended for the masses, we were getting away with something. We did not have to endure the whims of the catering staff, but rather the affection and fussing of our mothers, who sought to provide us with food that was both fun and sustaining. Whether or not their choice was  met with approval (the girl who only ate apples insisted that her mother didn't understand that she hated sandwiches), there was no denying that this was a meal designed solely for us, which did not have to be shared. Thus the lunchbox (container included, obviously) became a source of pride, a badge of personal identity.

In these instances, the school packed lunch can feel like a treat. The sense of pleasure is heightened by the fact that, for young children, most lunchboxes contain foods to be eaten with fingers, things normally associated with parties: tiny squares of sandwiches, tomatoes, grapes and mini chocolate fingers. They are thus relieved of the frustrations imposed by cutlery at home, and eating feels more like play. This idea is thrown into relief most noticeably on school trips, when everyone is required to bring their own food. Ask any 8 year old to identify the highlight of their day and you are guaranteed to receive the response "lunch".

Children often associate packed lunches with treats

The lunchbox may be a source of pleasure for the child (a feast of Hula Hoops, cocktail sausages and Iced Gems!), but it is often less so for the parent in charge of its preparation, who is forced to do battle with the need to feed their child responsibly and the desire to spoil them. Leanings towards the latter are in no way helped by the preponderance of advertising of this so-called "kid food" and the normalisation of processed fast food into the diets of children. Although much has been done to highlight the poor quality of school meals thanks to Jamie Oliver, research has shown that parents are no better than schools at feeding their children healthy meals in the middle of the day. A study published last autumn revealed that only 1.6% of children's lunchboxes met the nutritional standards required by school dinners, with only 1 in 5 lunchboxes containing any vegetables or salad, and 52%-60% containing too many sweet and savoury snacks, or sugary drinks. This has resulted in increasing numbers of children leaving primary school obese, setting up unhealthy eating habits for life.

It would be easy to demonise parents and their lack of nutritional awareness at this point, but it we should not underestimate the financial and time pressures they face when trying to scrabble together one or more lunches for their children every night after a full day of work. It is a fact of modern life that not everyone has the time or resources to create healthy feasts for their offspring every day. However, beyond these limitations, there is clearly a lot more at stake when it comes to preparing a lunchbox, beyond emulating the government's "eatwell plate". The tie between parental love and feeding should never be underestimated; with parents seeing their food as a true expression of their affection for their children, and as their first and foremost responsibility. 

Making a packed lunch for your children is a way of allowing your love to infiltrate the school environment, reminding them of how much they are cherished. But it is also a way of keeping control of them; without relying on the whims of the school catering staff, it is possible to know exactly what your children have (and, crucially, have not) eaten over the course of the day. Or so you think. Ultimately, every parent has to struggle with the knowledge that children are perfectly capable of tipping their sandwiches and fruit away, lying about how delicious they were and skipping merrily off to the canteen or vending machine to buy crisps and chocolate. If children are fussy, and liable to waste or flat refuse anything other than their favourite, beige foods, it is only too understandable that a parent will opt to give it to them, believing that it's better for them to eat that than nothing at all. Surely no one can forget the images of mothers desperately passing their children burgers through the school gates when Jamie Oliver overhauled school dinners, in fear that they would go hungry. 


 
Added to the mix is the fear of appearing a sub-standard parent by not providing a good enough lunch. This parental pressure is particularly notable in Japan, where the ritual of bento is an important part of school life. Schools apply strict nutritional standards to which parents must comply, and there is huge social pressure to create edible works of art for children each day, thanks to the trend for kyaraben - the fashioning of food to look like cartoon characters. Women have spoken of the highly competitive nature of bento-making, with mothers devoting hours to the careful preparation of these delicate meals in order to maintain a sense of superiority, as well as to prevent their children from being bullied for having a boring lunch. Teachers may even send written warnings home if the bento is considered insufficient. The concepts of love and feeding are so heavily intertwined that a mother who is not seen to put in significant effort into her child's lunch can be considered to be lacking in affection, and therefore a lesser parent.

The great irony of parental angst is that no amount of stress will guarantee how your child feels about packed lunches. No matter how long you agonise over the correct carb to protein ratio, once they reach a certain age, there is no way of knowing whether the little darling will throw it all away in disinterest. Some cannot wait to throw off the shackles of the parental packed lunch: hence why British sixth formers, freed of the rigours of the canteen, spend a good portion of their lunch hours visiting McDonald's or making toast, simply because they can. Others continue to feel the connection to home, and yearn for the feeling of comfort provided by a mother's meal. I recall the absolute delight on an A-Level trip of discovering a jam sandwich that my mum had slipped in my rucksack, because she just knew I'd be hungry. I was filled with the warmth of her affection, and I nibbled it contentedly in my bunkbed, feeling as though she were right there with me.

We should not underestimate the connection between packed lunches and parental affection (Photo: Oh Sweet Bag of Mine)

Despite reveling in the opportunity to choose our own foods as adults, the connection between a packed lunch and parental love is still somehow present, even if well disguised. One need only look at the number of people who opt for ready meals such as spaghetti Bolognese, cottage pie and casserole for their working lunches - warming comfort foods associated with childhood. These are the meals our mothers would.make: hot, hearty and filling, seen as important for a child's growth. And this is not restricted to Britain - as Meera Sodha wryly notes, although office workers in Mumbai have access to Westernised foods in their tiffin, they still prefer to eat "what mummyji makes". As hard as we may try to shake it off, the premise that the packed lunch represents the caring presence of a parent remains.

While this harking back to childhood speaks volumes about our modern anxiety epidemic, it also highlights the long-lasting impact of the food consumed in our earliest years on the habits we maintain in adulthood. Despite our independence and maturity, in the middle of our working days we long for the time when feeding ourselves required no work other than the lifting of steaming forkful to mouth, and we didn't have to worry about vegetables. In the havoc of the working day, eating a meal that comes pre-wrapped and ready to eat provides momentary relief from the responsibility of adulthood; even if you made it yourself, it can still feel like the home-packed delights of youth. The packed lunch becomes a gift, a treat and an act of self-love.

When the clocks strike noon across the world, workers down tools, children abandon maths with glee and harassed office bods look away from their screens to partake in a sacred daily ritual. The packed lunch.

As people gather at benches, long dining tables or corporate break out areas, there is an unmistakable hum of anticipation as bags are rustled and clip-top containers clicked; a brief moment when eyes light up as the day's fare is revealed. Whatever its contents, the packed lunch has the potential to delight (or disappoint) daily, and it can represent an irreplaceable moment of peace in a hectic working day.

Quotidian as it may be, the packed lunch is a hugely important cultural and personal signifier. What we choose to feed ourselves (or our dependents) at this all-important meal sheds light on our personalities and social background, and, crucially, our relationship with food.

So what is it exactly? At its core, the packed lunch is a meal prepared in advance, that is eaten outside of the home. In England, the history of the packed lunch is inevitably intertwined with that of the industrial revolution. In the era before the steam engine, when the majority of work was agricultural, farmhands would return home for lunch, or were brought food in the fields by their wives and daughters - if, indeed, they paused for lunch at all. Urbanisation and the arrival of factories meant that people began to work further and further from home, with a limited pause in the day that did not permit a return to the homestead for feeding. So they had to take their meals with them. As did those working on the new railways: photographs of navvies (the infamous Irish workers) show men resting at noon with a straw "pantry" and a large flask of tea or coffee, to keep them sustained through the long working day. In Yorkshire, coal miners kept their bread in a "snap" tin, made of heavy material designed to keep out the dust and grime, so called because of the sharp snap it made when opened. The meal itself became known as snap, and the term can still be heard in parts of Yorkshire.

Poverty and working conditions determined the menu of these early packed lunches: a poor labourer's lunch (or "noonshine" as it was known) might include bread and dripping, with perhaps a piece of cheese. Pastries and pies were also popular, as the thick pastry, which was not intended for consumption, protected the contents from the blackened, greasy hands of the workers. Alongside the famous Cornish pasty was the Bedfordshire clanger - a long suet pastry containing a worker's complete meal, with meat, onions and potatoes at one end, and a sweet filling (usually jam) at the other.

We're all about coming up with new pasty flavours, but sometimes a Traditional #Cornish Pasty, is the only #Pasty that will do. pic.twitter.com/XsJmueQJRm

— Warrens Bakery (@WarrensBakery) February 28, 2017

The crucial development in the history of the British packed lunch is the rise of the sandwich. Quick to make, easily transportable, and even more easily eaten, Bee Wilson notes that "no dish has a stronger association with the world of work". Although John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, is often credited with the invention of this revolutionary food item (the story that, while working or playing cards, he called for "beef between two slices of bread" so as to keep his hands and cards clean) it's worth remembering that the idea of putting filling in bread has been practised for centuries around the world.

Historians have suggested that the first sandwich can be traced to the first century BC, and the first Passover meal. Known as the Korech or Hillel, it consisted of apples, nuts, bitter herbs and unleavened bread, its sticky consistency intended to represent the mortar used by Jewish slaves in Egypt. Even in Britain, labourers had been eating cheese with their bread for centuries: the crucial difference (as Wilson points out) is that Montagu ordered his sandwich ready made, thus branding it a convenience food suitable for both the aristocracy and the masses. By the turn of the 19th century, sandwiches were being served at late night suppers, balls and in clubs as a fashionable snack, with fillings becoming increasingly elaborate over time. Meanwhile, an altogether more crude variety of boiled ham sandwiches was sold on the streets of Victorian Britain for 1d to hungry shop workers at lunchtime.

What brought the two traditions together to create the lunch box staple we know and love (recent stats suggest that 56% of Brits eat sandwiches daily, at a cost of £48,000 a year) was the industrialisation of bread production, allowing factories to churn out loaves at an unprecedented rate. By the 1930s, sliced bread was available in Britain, and the Chorleywood process of the 1960s (which added extra yeast, fats and other additives to make for a quicker rising time and a longer shelf life) meant that it was possible to buy bread more cheaply than ever. This was the dawn of the 'sandwich loaf': specifically designed to make the preparation of this simple meal as quick as possible. Although suitable for any time of day, the classic sandwich became a lunchtime staple, given its cheapness, ease of preparation and possibility for variation.

Sandwiches for sale, London 1972, photo by Glen F. pic.twitter.com/bY82To4T02

— Rob Baker (@robnitm) May 8, 2017

The widespread adoption of sandwiches as packed lunch food really took hold in the mid-20th century. Although chop houses and canteens fuelled Victorian city and factory workers in the middle of the day (many did not have suitable facilities at home to prepare their own food) we know that by the late 1940s, workers were taking sandwiches with them to work, in an attempt to save money. For those unable to buy lunch daily, butter and jam, tinned ham, spam and salmon all started to feature in the home-to-work sandwich, perhaps with a smear of salad cream or a slice of tomato in summer.

The wedge sandwich (as popularised by Montagu, and later, Marks & Spencer) is now known and consumed for lunch in different variations the world over. Whether it's an over-stuffed Reuben on rye in New York, a delicate tramezzino di prosciutto in Milan, or a toasted aduki-bean sandwich in Nagoya - us Brits could easily presume (in an echo of colonial superiority) that sandwiches as we know them are the packed lunch of choice the world over. This is not so, and the unique cultural traditions that surround the packed lunch in different nations show clearly that there is far more to it than simple convenience and availability of white sliced.

Take, for example, bento, a ritual rooted in Japanese history and culture. Both the name of the meal and its container, bento are boxes used to transport food that is consumed away from the home. The first bento are said to have been used by ancient hunters and soldiers, who used them to transport dried rice when they were away from home, possibly as far back as the 5th century, but certainly by the 12th century. By the Edo period (1650-1868) bento was firmly established not only as a way of transporting the meals of workers, but also for picnics among the middle classes, particularly at the theatre.

Bento boxes were made of lacquered wood or wicker, with internal divisions intended for the different foodstuffs,  including rice, pickles, vegetables and fish. As in Britain, the advent of industrialisation and the railway meant that workers needed a convenient way to eat outside the home. In the mid 19th century, bento started becoming available to buy at railway stations, allowing workers to pick up their midday meal en route. Although ready-made bento is widely available in modern Japan, the homemade variety, usually prepared by the woman of the house, still maintains huge cultural significance.

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A post shared by @makiko_cooking on May 1, 2017 at 4:06pm PDT

While the attitude towards lunch-making for British workers may be said to be begrudging at best (ie. a box filled with whatever is lurking in the fridge), bento is in no way treated like a second-class meal. Even if consumed as part of a working lunch, it is still regarded as something with the potential for high culinary, nutritional and, crucially, aesthetic achievement. Bento should be fresh and colourful, containing a range of protein and vegetables, the contents reflecting the location and the season, and always impeccably presented,. It is traditionally wrapped in a silk furoshiki cloth that also doubles as a table cloth, and is eaten at room temperature with chopsticks. Bento has gained fame worldwide, and in Japan, the art of its creation (as documented in the numerous dedicated websites and Instagram posts) can be said to be nothing short of a national obsession.

Another unique packed lunch tradition is tiffin, as famously found in Mumbai. The term "tiffin" has disputed origins (it is generally agreed to have meant any form of snack or light meal during the colonial era), but now it refers specifically to the ingenious packed lunch system that operates in India's capital. City workers' long commutes demand an early departure, before the kitchen and cook are up and running. So their lunches are collected from their homes later in the day by thousands of men known as dabbawallahs,  As with bento, tiffin refers to the container as well as the concept - several tiers of stainless steel tins (containing rice, curries, pickles, bajis and more) that are clamped together and stored in thermos pouches to keep warm. These pouches are then balanced on the heads of the dabbawallahs, who transport them by bicycle and train to the business districts, where they are distributed punctually to their owners. Invented in 1890 when the city was in flux, the system, which now feeds at least 200,000 people, has 99% success rate. (An award-winning film, The Lunchbox, told a wonderful story about the "unlucky" 1%). In a world dominated by Deliveroo and UberEats this seems a staggering feat, given that tiffin relies on almost no technology, using only a simple colour coding system to ensure the food arrives at the right destination at the right time. Tiffin is taken very seriously; being a dabbawallah is seen as a respectable trade, as they are crucial to the functioning of the city and its workers.



In Britain there is a tendency to consume one's working lunch with startling rapidity, as though, unlike dinner, it does not count as a "proper" meal, and is thus unworthy of more attention. It seems that, for many, lunch is an afterthought, something to be dealt with, but not necessarily enjoyed. As a result, we neglect to take it seriously. But this is not so elsewhere. A good bento is a symbol of national pride and patriotism, as well as personal culinary achievement: showing an adherence to presentation and healthy nutrition. In Mumbai, the working lunch is so highly regarded that an entire logistical system was required in order to feed the city's workers hot, homemade food. In these cultures, lunch is not an afterthought but a priority; and although our cultural landscape is markedly different (having more women at home means there is someone with the dedicated role of lunch-making every day), us Brits could perhaps do well to learn from these other countries and the way they look at lunch. The satisfaction of eating a meal prepared with care and attention should not be underestimated, and could arguably prevent mindless snacking later on.

All this goes to show that the meal eaten between breakfast and dinner is not a negligible one. Designed as sustenance for workers, at its core it is fuel; intended to power brain and body for the remaining hours of toil. Because it is so rarely associated with leisure (unless, of course, you are on holiday, but I would argue that this constitutes a picnic) it has suffered from the connotation in Britain that it need not be an enjoyable experience, merely sufficient. This attitude is exemplified by the rise of the sandwich, which is seen as the fastest, most straightforward way of eating, without having to step away from one's desk. But in Japan and India the packed lunch is seen as a tangible connection to one's cultural history, giving it a firm sense of identity. Perhaps if we were to look at our own food in this way, we would be less likely to begrudge its preparation, and thus eat with greater relish.