What do children around the world eat for lunch every day? To answer that question, play studio and kids app developer Toca Boca invited 10 children from six different continents to photograph their lunches using phone cameras. The resulting snapshots, which feature a diverse variety of dishes and snacks, provide a fascinating and authentic glimpse of daily meals in countries like Japan, Brazil, Sweden, and South Africa.
“The idea is to see the world from the kid’s perspective all around the globe,” Toca Magazine’s editorial director Ingrid Simone told The Huffington Post. “Seeing how families nourish their kids around the world feeds into our natural curiosity and connects us.”
The What’s for Lunch? series is part of Kid’s-Eye View, a new four-part project that takes a look at the everyday lives of kids across the globe. To see more of their day-to-day experiences, check out Toca Boca’s website over the next few weeks for fun installments covering topics like transportation and personal style.
Malik, 12, Illinois, USA
“I had a PB&J sandwich on honey wheat bread, fresh strawberries, Soft Batch chocolate chip cookies, and Takis Fuego chips.”
Bobo, 9, Sweden
“Meatballs and fried potatoes, with cucumber and ketchup. I don’t really like potatoes, but we had to have them since they were leftovers from the day before.”
Kanoka, 11, Japan
“Shaun the Sheep rice ball is made with rice, seaweed, and cheese. The bush is made with broccoli. Other parts are fried egg, sausage, Chinese fried pepper and steak, and fruits (kiwi, watermelon, and grapes). . . My lunch is always made up of a wide variety of food stuff and very colorful. But Shaun the Sheep appears only once in a while.”
Siobhan, 11, Australia
“I had rice with vegetables, a roasted potato, and a roll of homemade bread. The rice and vegetables were left over from dinner that my grandmother and aunty had together, the previous evening. It was like a stir fry but without the frying. My aunty is very healthy, she probably made it. The roasted potatoes were cooked in the oven and I don’t know how my grandmother gets them so crunchy, not even mum can do that. My ‘Lela’ makes yummy bread and every time we go and visit, she has freshly made the bread so the apartment smells so so so delicious. For a weekend this is usually a standard meal.”
Cadence, 12, California, USA
“My lunch was falafel in a pita topped with pickled onions and chili sauce, with sweet potato fries on the side. It was pretty unusual that day since we got it from a food truck. Usually my lunches have foods such as pasta, tacos, or sometimes vegetarian sushi.”
Virginia, 7, Brazil
“Pork, mashed potatoes, sprinkled with grated cheese and a dash of ketchup. On the side, a cherry tomato salad with lots of balsamic vinegar and some ‘caldinho de feijo’ (black bean soup). This is what I usually have for lunch when I am at home, and also the kind of meal I have for dinner every day. Yummy!”
Kema, 10, South Africa
“This meal is a popular South African dish which is called a boerie roll. A boerie roll is like a hot dog except the sausage you use is called boerewors, a very South African sausage meat that we usually have on a cookout but you can eat it any time. My meal had a whole wheat roll, boerewors sausage, and ketchup and some fries on the side.”
Suchita, 7, India
“Pulses (beans), rice, and potato wedges, with some green salad.”
Andy, 10, Florida, USA
“Peanut butter sandwich (No jelly. I don’t like jelly.), grapes, banana bread, and chocolate milk. I eat peanut butter almost every day for breakfast or lunch. I usually don’t get banana bread with lunch.”
Takuto, 8, Japan
“Japanese somen noodles and soup to dip the noodles; cucumber, tomato, fried egg, and Chikuwa (fish sausage). The cucumber and the tomato came from my backyard. The unusual thing was that a tomato was on my plate! Mom sometimes puts tomato on my plate.”
Toca Boca: Kid’s-Eye View
via [Huffington Post]