Investigation of “Bento” Culture in Focusing on the Order of Feeding Actions

“Bento” is widely known as a packed meal culture in Japanese cuisine. In order to investigate the Bento culture, we conducted the behavior analysis in terms of the feeding action for a packed meal. It is called “Shumai Bento” in Japanese. In the first term, “Shumai” is originated as “Shaomai” in China. It is a famous cuisine in Yokohama city which is located near Tokyo city in Japan. Since it is one of famous China towns, “Shumai Bento” is also widely known as a special local product. It holds “Shumai” as a main meal accompanying boiled rice, fried egg and other vegetables in a box-shaped container. In this study, 22 subjects were entered in this experiment. Their motions were recorded by video camera and analyzed in focusing on their order of feedings on each meal. Bento is a set of meals. We have to make a little decision of what to eat at first because all meals are served at same time. In our thought, the first action may be decided by their characteristics. A person conveyed a “Shumai” to her/his mouth at first. Another parson conveyed rice to her/his mouth at first. In the second action, it is more complicated decision making from the first one. We need to consider the prior probability as a similar method of the Bayes’ theorem. If a person already had a “Shumai” at first, the probability of the selection for “Shumai” will be low. However, if a person so much prefers to eat a favorite meal, in the next action, he may repeat same action. In this study, we classified them by some psychological testing and found the first actions were related with their characteristics.