15 Countries: What’s for lunch in Asia
We’re marking World Food Day by celebrating the midday meal across Asia.
From Mongolia to Papua New Guinea, take a look at a typical lunchtime for children. Sticky rice or jackfruit, pork or fried eel- the meals are a rainbow of delicacies.
Are you hungry yet?
“Usually I love meat for my lunch but my mother says vegetables!”
Five-year-old Yunar’s lunch is a plate full of rice with a piece of fish, vegetable curry, peas, and a glass of water. Yunar usually goes home for lunch, after attending pre-primary classes. She lives with her parents and grandmother in the Rupsa Slum area in Khulna, an area famous for their fishing industry.
We have three dishes for lunch today at my house. My name is Samang and I’m five years old. Since it is rainy season we can easily grow green vegetables around our house.
On the menu today: Machu Kdam: A local soup with thin slices of green papaya and gourd, then mixed with fish and crab meat, seasoned with fish eggs and red chilli. Samlor Korko: An aromatic dish of pumpkin, green papaya, young chilli leaves with fermented fish, and lemongrass. Tek Kreung: Fish meat, ground peanuts, and fermented fish sauce is served with slices of cucumber, cooked papaya and young Leucaena leucocephala leaves. The meal isn’t complete without a pot of rice.
This is what I eat every day! Hi my name is Jiayi. With my brother and sisters we peel the corn brought home by our father who has just returned from the farm. World Vision helped our family with an agriculture project. I live in northwest China where families like ours make a living from farming.
My name is Sarya and I’m 9 years old and studying in third grade in Rajasthan. I eat lunch at home around 2pm after returning from school, which is prepared by my mother. For lunch I have: two bajara roti (millet flat bread) spread with ‘ghee’ (clarified butter), and vegetables that I wash down with “chaas” (a popular yogurt-based drink- also known as buttermilk).
I like eating vegetables like sangri and gwarfali along with the rotis. Most of the seasonal vegetables that we grow in our desert area are dried so that they can be preserved for a longer period.
Indonesia: Rice, mustard greens and a fried egg photo by Agustinus Fredi
Hi, my name is Herpiani and this is my lunch at school. I have lunch with my friends. I have fried rice, sautéed mustard greens, and a fried egg. I also bring my own water bottle. I got this lunch box from World Vision so that I can bring my own meal to school. My mom makes my lunch at 6 a.m. every morning before I go to school. I am in fifth grade of elementary school in West Kalimantan, Indonesia
My name is Aiy and I’m 8 years old in primary school grade 3. Normally, I have lunch at 11:30am after school break. My mother prepares food for me every day. My special lunch that I like the most is omlette because I don’t like spicy and bitter food. Sometimes I eat alone and sometimes I eat with my sister. I don’t eat very often with my parents because they are working on the farm. Most of our food comes from nature that we collect from the wild forest. Today we ate omlette and wild vegetables mixed with chili sauce. And we always have sticky rice.
I’m Urango. I’m 8 years old in grade 3. I live with my grandparents and my aunt in Ulaanbaatar. I go to school in the morning and then I’m done. After that I go home for the rest of the day. For lunch my grandmother makes tea with sugar, bread and butter. It is a very typical lunch.
Myanmar: Rice, potato-chicken curry and fried watercress photo by Khaing Min Htoo
My name is Swe and I’m 11 years old. I live with my grandmother and grandfather. My grandmother packs my lunch. My favorite is rice and potato-chicken curry. I also love fried watercress. My grandmother cooks it once in a while. We have lunch at noon and sometimes I share my lunch with my best friends in class. See more photos of Swe and her grandmother
Nepal: Eggs, rice and fruit photo by Sunjuli Kunwar
“I love to eat eggs as they are very tasty and make me stronger!” says Samikshya, age 7. She loves to dance and sing and says that she is strong and can dance because she eats well.
A typical lunch that her mother Gita cooks for her is rice, green vegetables, pickles, and dal. After that is milk curd which is good for digestion and for dessert a banana and a sliced apple. Learn more about Samikshya and her family
It’s 12:15pm, time for lunch! Faustina, 5, and Constantine, 8, say a prayer before every meal. Today’s lunch is sago, with fresh water fish and greens. Sago is the common staple food in the dry season. The fish are taken from small, local waterways. Coconut adds a creamy flavour to the fish and greens.
Constantine finishes school at noon each day, just a five-minute walk away from home so he eats with his mom and sister everyday. Faustina isn’t in school yet, but waits patiently for her brother each day before starting lunch.
Mary Ann, 10, from Ormoc City, enjoys a sumptuous lunch of rice, kinilaw (raw fish soaked in vinegar and mixed with seasonings) and diniguan (a local stew made from pork blood and other ground meat parts).
“I love to eat dhal and beetroot with rice!”
Kelum, 7, is ready to enjoy the delicious meal his mother has prepared for him. “I’m a little hungry when I come home from school and my mother’s food is tasty.” On the menu today is beetroot, green leaf salad, dhal (lentils) and fish curry with rice. “My boys love to eat lentils, so I cook it almost everyday,” says Anusha, Kelum’s mum. Learn more about Kelum's story
School lunch today: Fried rice with pork, chicken soup, fresh cucumber, and black jelly (liquorice flavoured) for dessert.
Most Thai students eat lunch at school. In some rural schools where World Vision Foundation of Thailand has Lunch Projects, lunches are served for free. At school, children raise and grow the ingredients used for their lunch like mushrooms, vegetables and herbs, chicken, fish, and even pigs.
After changing out of her school uniform and washing her hands with soap, Tisia, 5, sits down for lunch at home with her parents, grandmother, and three siblings. After her morning in Kindergarten II, she is hungry and tired. Her mother has prepared white rice and mixed vegetables including young jackfruit and cabbage plus noodles which are stir-fried with turmeric in oil and seasoning salt and spices.
Sam, 9, has lunch at home after school. “I like to eat rice with fried eels and vegetables soup. But I like most our traditional rice cakes. We often call them buffalo-horn cakes. We often bring some along to school and eat them during break.”
Her mother, Pia, does the cooking and then waits for the 4th grader coming back home from school. Her father, Son, made the dining table from a tree trunk.
What's for lunch for today? Her mum prepared a nutritious lunch with home-grown products: rice, eels fried with ginger and citronella, boiled 'ngot' vegetables, loopah soup, fish sauce with ginger, rice cakes, some bananas, sugar-cane, and a cup of boiled water. Join Sam for lunch
Jintu, 8, is in 4th grade. He lives in the Mising community in Dhemaji, Assam, India with is parents and younger brother, Powan, 5. The brother’s eat their morning meal before leaving for school. What’s on their plate? Pitangoying – A stew of rice, lentil and chicken, Banamongo – Wood roasted fish, Singali – boiled tapioca leaves, Namsing – fermented fish paste, Apin – cooked rice, Dal – cooked lentils.
What World Vision is doing
World Vision works in thousands of communities across Asia. In many of those villages and cities we’re teaching mothers and pregnant women how to cook nutritious meals from locally available ingredients.
This multi-country aim helps ensure children get the right vitamins, protein, and nutrients to grow as healthy as possible.