Reformed fish paste has never looked so good.

Chikuwa, literally meaning “bamboo rings” because of their shape and the traditional way of making them, are a cheap and cheerful way of filling out meals in Japan. They are made from ground-up fish paste, salt, sugar, starch and egg whites. That may sound like something best avoided, or burnt and the ashes buried in a lead-lined box, but actually they’re surprisingly tasty.

▼ Chikuwa in its most common state

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They are also the latest thing to be used in making lunch boxes too beautiful to eat. They are perfect for this latest batch of charaben to surface on the internet, and even if the ingredients may not be everyone’s cup of tea, visually they can make for an extremely cute lunch.

▼ With little sausage tentacles

▼ Sporting green afros, and with something suspicious-looking in their hair that reminds me of a video I saw once…

▼ If you kind of squint a bit, they look like hearts!

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/786334902299955200

▼ How could you eat something that looks so cute? Easily.

▼ Puppies, with a Tsum-Tsum vibe

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/729278819320758272

▼ The Chikuwa have provided this ram with horns

Given the size of the ingredients needed to provide the eyes, or even the beaks of the next two images, someone doesn’t have the shaky-hands of an eight-cups-of-tea-a-day writer.

At around 50 yen (US$0.44) for a pack of four, chikuwa are perfect for the budget-conscious bento artist. Let’s hope they taste as good as they look.

Source: Matome Naver
Image: Wikipedia/Lombroso