Monday, November 30, 2009

Melonpan

The standard melonpan with a grid-shaped pattern.

One with chocolate chips.

Maple melonpan. This one tasted like maple syrup. There were four pieces in the package.

You can see custard sauce in the maple melonpan.

I couldn't have all the three at once, so I had halves of the first two and pieces of the maple melonpan with a canned coffee.



Today let me introduce a bread called "Melonpan"(pan means "bread"). I've been a fan of this bread since I was small, and a few years ago it was so popular across Japan that there was often a melonpan stall in the parking lot of a supermarket, home appliance retailer, and what not.

But this melonpan doesn't include any melon juice at all. It was named melonpan just because it has a grid-shaped pattern on the surface, which looks like a melon and because sometimes it inculdes an artificial melon flavor. This bread was invented in the period between the latter half of the Meiji era (1868-1912) and some time after the first World War ended.

I spotted three types of this melonpan at a supermarket. Each of them cost only about 1 us dollar, so it might be suitable for snack.