幕の内

The makunouchi bento pairs white rice with a colourful assortment of side dishes—grilled fish, rolled omelet, kamaboko. It is said to have originated in the late Edo period as the boxed meal eaten "within the curtains," in the intervals between acts at the theatre.

Its etymology, however, has several competing accounts—that it was the meal actors and crew ate backstage inside the curtain, or that the name links to sumo's makuuchi division. From the Meiji era it became a staple of station bento, and today it is nearly synonymous with the boxed lunch itself—yet folded into its name is the memory of a full day at the theatre.

In everyday life today the word is thoroughly at home: "Grab a makunouchi bento before boarding the Shinkansen"; "When in doubt, the makunouchi never disappoints." A little of everything, beautifully arranged—the aesthetic born in the theatre's intervals remains a trusted measure for choosing a boxed meal.

Makunouchi grew out of the food culture of playgoing as a whole. The Edo pleasure of a theatre day—bento unwrapped between acts included—lives on, in altered form, in the very theatres where the Ichikawa Sōke's stages are still mounted.