Ekiben Audio Guide

Welcome to the World of Ekiben

Welcome to the world of ekiben. Picture this: outside the window of a moving train, rice paddies and mountains drift slowly past. In your hands is a small package, still unopened. You untie the string, lift the lid of the wooden box, and the aroma of a region's rice rises softly to meet you — this is ekiben. Ekiben are boxed meals sold at stations and on trains, made for the journey. In Japan, riding the rails and eating an ekiben have long been bound together as inseparable pleasures. Some are topped with the freshest catch of the sea, some packed with a region's specialties, some presented in containers as beautiful as the food itself — across the country, there are more kinds than anyone could count. For locals, they are nostalgic flavors tied to the memory of a trip. For travelers, they are little boxes that let you journey by taste alone, without ever stepping off the platform. Over the next little while, let's trace the story held within this single box. Let's begin with when and where ekiben were born — the history of ekiben.