Do you know how to make usagi ringo (rabbit apple) for your kid’s obento

Usagi ringo literally “rabbit apple” is a piece of an apple with its skin carved or peeled into the shape of rabbit’s ears…commonly a part of child obento-lunchboxes.

About 35 percent of parents in their 20s, 30s and 40s do not know how to make usagi ringo (rabbit apple), says a greengrocers association survey.  

According to the nationwide survey by the association of apple dealers in Aomori Prefecture (based on a sampling of 400 men and women aged from their teens to their 60s):  

Twenty-nine, or 30.5 percent, of the 95 male and female respondents in their 20s, 30s and 40s who have children aged between 2 and 12 said they did not know how to make or could not make usagi ringo, which is traditionally a popular item for children’s bento boxed meals, and four said they did not know what usagi ringo was, meaning a total of 34.7 percent of those raising children cannot cut and peel apples to make usagi ringo.

Among respondents in their 50s and 60s, 20.6 percent said they could not make usagi ringo. Four percent of female respondents in that age bracket said they could not make it, while 72 percent said they were good at peeling an apple that way.

22 percent of those in their 60s said they eat an apple almost every day, while 41 percent of respondents in 20s, 30s and 40s said they do so once a month or less.

Source: Can you make a rabbit out of an apple?– 35% of parents can’t The Yomiuri Shimbun (Dec. 16, 2008)