名物鄕土料理、鐵道旅行など非日常性を特徵とする驛弁は時代の變化に對應しながら發展してきた。本稿では驛弁の步みを槪觀し、とりわけ特徵的な變化がみられた戰時體制下の驛弁を手掛かりに驛弁の社會性·時代性について考察した。驛弁のメニュ一やかけ紙にみられる變化から驛弁の時代狀況の受け止め方やその背景について考察した。 戰況の惡化に伴い日本では民間人の長距離移動と食糧の流通に强い統制がかかった。それまでの地域特産物やデザイン性に富むかけ紙はなくなり、「代用食」メニュ一や戰時標語が幷ぶ一色刷りのかけ紙に變わった。驛弁の特徵であった贅澤感や非日常性が戰爭という暗鬱な日常に覆われた特殊な時代であった。一方、驛弁業者は鐵道當局との信賴關係や大量の弁當を調製するノ一ハウ―を生かして「軍弁」の提供を擔ったと考えられる。戰時體制下の驛弁は、驛弁特有の地域色や贅澤感は保持することはできなかったものの、戰後から今日にいたるまでの社會的變化に對應しながら多樣な驛弁の調製を續ける蓄積に繫がったといえよう。
Ekiben(railway boxed meals), characteristic of its non-everydayness exemplifed by famous regional specialties and train travel, has developed itself in response to a change of times. This paper takes a general look at the history of ekiben, and then investigates ekiben under the period of wartime during which many of its distict features have emerged as evidence for its sociality and historicity. What this paper focuses on in particular ranges from changes appearing in the menu and packaging of ekiben to the way in which it responds to, and is receptive of, the situation in the then period and to the underlying historical backdrop behind it. Japan in wartime strictly controlled long-distance movement of civilians and food distribution, as the war situation deterioated. This led to the transformation of ekiben`s packaging design from a disinctive and diverse form, influenced mostly by regional specialties(i.e. gakegami), into a standardized form printed merely with wartime images and replacement menu: it was the peculiar time during which luxuriness and non-everydayness representative of ekiben`s original characteristics have been shadowed by the then gloomy everydays in wartime Japan. Meanwhile, ekiben producers were also assumed to have been able to supply gunben(military boxed meals) thanks to their maintaining their personal trustful relationship with railway authorities or by inventing their know-hows for mass-production of boxed meals. That ekiben has been unable to maintain its original local/regional and luxurious characteristics during the wartime can possibly be to do with the continuous production/invention of diverse forms of ekiben to date from the postwar period
