Bread!!!!!

Japan seems to be facinated with breads and pastries, and in true Japanese style they have made it into an artform! I tell you, if they keep going like this we're going to see alot more fat Japanese!  The word for bread in Japanese is Pan...it is the portuguese word for bread. Apparently in the 1500's the Japanese and Portuguese came into contact and there began some limited trade between the two cultures.
Following First Contact (that's for you Roxanne Hernandez) in 1543, the Japanese were at first rather wary of the newly arrived foreigners calling them barbarians; identifying the Europeans' manners as crude,having a lack of hygiene, and an inability to understand Japanese writing. A contemporary Japanese account relates:

"They eat with their fingers instead of with chopsticks such as we use. They show their feelings without any self-control. They cannot understand the meaning of written characters" (from Boxer, "Christian century").

Despite this the Portuguese were to make an impact on Japanese culinary life by introducing Bread, refined sugar and ...wait for it....Tempura!!! 

 

 

Coming back to present day and Pan. It's everywhere and it's delicious! It's presented in various forms...including one of my favorites the butter roll. You get a delicious dinner roll with butter already inside it! If you heat the rolls up, the butter melts inside into mouthwatering goodness!


                                 


Whether it's dinner rolls or Mexican Conchas (called Melon Bread here) the Japanese prepare them and then make them better! Fresher, tastier, it's amazing!

Never ones to just let bread be bread though...the whole "lets stuff the bread" is on a whole other level here. I have bought bread that was stuffed with curry, beef stew and even cheese fondue!

 

 

 

Last night Gary and I went out to dinner, the big perk of the restaurant we went to was it's Bread Buffet! All throughout the meal, fresh breads of many different selections were being brought out to the buffet table, piping hot and all you could eat!

 

Nom, Nom,Nom!!!!