bento#28 Toon Link January 22, 2009

I think I’ve mentioned on my blog before, but I don’t like making human characters for my bento. One of the reasons is I think it’s a bit creepy to eat human characters. I know many people will say “And it’s not creepy to eat Totoro???”, but it’s just something about human characters that weird me out a bit. Also another reason (the main reason) is that it’s really hard to make food look like them!! Also I prefer my bento to be 3-D than rather than 2-D, so I usually pick non-human characters that I can “sculpt” with food. But just like Professor Layton and Cooking Mama, this was very special, so I made an exception.

Bento #28: Toon Link
Created and eaten on: 12/11/2008

My boyfriend is a HUGE Legend of Zelda fan. I do like Zelda too, but the Zelda I remember (and always will) is the Legend of Zelda which was released in Japan in 1986 (The Adventure of Link). It was soooo hard to slash ANYTHING with that sword!! Everything was harder in the 8-bit world. Link also got more pixels and became more human-like and it just didn’t look right to me… but then the Wind Waker was released. Link’s head was huge and he was adorable again! A couple of years later, “the Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass” was released for DS. I remember when my boyfriend received the feather stylus. (Of course, he still has it in the box though :P) Toon Link was too adorable and toony not to make a bento of!

I first thought of making Link on his boat, but there was too much blue… so I gave up. I love when Link raises his hand in the air and strikes a poise when finds an item, so I decided to make Toon Link in the forest, finding a piece of heart.

First, I put rice in a bento box for background. I put Japanese style hamburg that I had made the night before with sauce, and put it on the rice as the ground and surrounded it with broccoli and asparagus.

I made the shape of Link’s head and body with potato salad I had from the night before. I then microwaved lettuce and wrapped it around his body for his shirt. For his dress (??) I microwaved spinach and wrapped it around. I was very surprised that lettuce and spinach looked like real fabrics! I sliced and cut carrot for his boots, seaweed and cheese for his belt, and cut out a circle out of an egg sheet. (see “how to make an egg sheet”) I put cut out turkey for his hands and face, put seaweed on fish cake for his eyes, and fake sausage for his mouth. I used rest of the egg sheet to make the hair and also made little flowers that I put on the broccoli.

For the flowers, I cut fake fishcake and the pink part of kamaboko to make them  just like the ones from Wind Waker. I also tried to make the leaves with spinach, but it didn’t come out too good… (It was too wrinkly)

I cut out konnyaku (yam cake) with a heart shaped cutter, and on that Iput a smaller heart which I cut out of kamaboko with a smaller cutter. Using the same cutter I used for the pink heart for the piece of heart, I sliced carrot to made several life hearts and a half.

I liked how his clothes came out, because it really looked like fabric! But overall, I felt that it lacked color. Maybe because I used turkey instead of ham, and the background was just rice. I don’t think the proportion of Link’s head and his body is correct either…  then I realized that’s why I don’t like making human characters for my bento. T_T

Toon Link:
– potato salad wrapped with lettuce and spinach
– turkey for his face and hands
– carrot for his boots
– egg for his hair
– seaweed and kamaboko (fish cake) for his eyes
– fake sausage for his mouth

Piece of heart:
– konnyaku (yam cake) and kamaboko

Life:
– carrot

Flowers:
– kamaboko
– spinach
– egg sheet

Other food:
– rice
– Japanese style hamburg
– broccoli
– asparagus

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.