For the love of lunchboxes
All the greens!
Whilst one of the great pleasures in life is sitting a quiet corner of a good café which services well-cooked food, and watching the world go by, it’s not always practical. There are places where the cafes don’t exist, aren’t open when needed or are too expensive to frequent too often, times when lunch may need to be more hurried, a fridge full of leftovers that must not be wasted or a diet that needs to be stuck to carefully.
Packed lunches are the solution to all these scenarios. The leftovers can be folded into two slices of bread and wrapped tightly in a wrapper or spooned into a lunch box and sealed against leakages. Food can be selected to be vegan or gluten free and measured out in more precise portion sizes to match energy needed with energy used. I’ve always liked being able to add variety to a packed lunch – a few olives in the corner of a salad, a tiny pot of nuts or a slice of yesterday’s pizza. Even in a hurry I have found that jamming a tin of sweetcorn and a tin of tuna into my bag and mixing it with mayonnaise on the go is an acceptable meal – particularly if there are capers lurking in the fridge (screw the cap on well before you set off).
The cake that sits open and tempting in the evenings is much better consumed, slice by slice, over successive packed lunches. And the fruit that gets forgotten in the fruit bowl is a worthy snack in the middle of the day well away from home (where it gets overlooked because there are other things in the fridge).
Future foods in non-plastic containers
Over the years I have built up a variety of packed lunch kit. Much prized is my two layer tiffin tin, for sweet and savoury, pizza and salad or curry and rice. I like that it is stainless steel and has washed scuff-free for over a decade. It came with its own little kidney shaped mini tin that I sometimes fit inside - for chutneys or olives, yogurt or other dressings. I covet a German version I’ve seen, an enamel tin with a lid that is a little bread board (we used to eat our evening suppers on little boards when I was a child). Maybe one day.
Leftover pizza for the win
Other worthy contenders for keeping sandwiches and bars fresh (and separate from the rest of my gear) are reuseable wrappers made of beeswax. I usually tie them with elastic bands. They have the advantage of being light and folding small after use.
A friend swears by silicon bags with watertight seals which will keep liquids securely and move seamlessly from freezer to microwave for soup on the go.
I’m not a fan of clingfilm – or any single use plastic to be honest – so if I don’t have a container to hand I will sometimes use aluminium foil which can be recycled or greaseproof paper and a rubber band.
Reusable wraps!
With an eye to the things I like to use, I’ve been experimenting with making washable and reuseable roll style wrappers, using beeswax coated cotton but with integral ties or with Fold+Rºll proportions to roll and tuck around a sandwich or a flapjack. If coated with mayo or jam their sticky side can be kept on the inside, away from books and notepads and other bag inhabitants.
Four sizes to try out for practicality, flapjack and sandwich fit
These are very much a work in progress – and as I do much of my work from home I don’t get to try them out every day. But I’m looking forward to feedback from my friends and relatives who have been gifted some early prototypes. Drop me a line if you’re interested!.
