For a country that eats as much rice as Japan, they have some pretty interesting kinds of bread here, too. Introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century, pan has been made in Japan long enough for it to morph into some pretty interesting shapes, including a few that Westerners might have trouble identifying. The most basic type of bread, of course, is the normal sliced variety, which can be purchased in standard sized loaves cut into eight, six or four slices, depending on how thick you like your sandwiches to be. Anpan is a traditional round bread with Japanese sweet beans (anko) inside, and Curry Pan is a ball-shaped piece of fried bread that contains spicy curry — yummy. Whenever I’m passing through a train station and get hungry, I pick up some yakisoba pan, essentially a long piece of bead with chow mein-style noodles stuffed inside, about as simple a snack as you can ask for. One of the most famous forms of Japanese bread is Melon Pan, thanks to it appearing in some well-known anime series. Originally made using a rice mold for making omelette-rice dishes which gave it a shape like an almond, in the 1920s the the bread took on a round shape and got its current name, thanks to the resemblance to a honeydew melon. In some parts of the country it was made with a cookie in the center, called Sunrise, since it looked like a Japanese flag and hi no de (sunrise) as seen on the Japanese flag.
