Anpan

Anpan

Type	Sweet roll
Course	Dessert
Place of origin	Japan
Region or state	Ginza, Tokyo
Created by	Yasubei Kimura
Main ingredients	Red bean paste
Media: Anpan

Anpan (あんパン; 餡（あん）パン) is a Japanese sweet roll, most commonly filled with red bean paste. Anpan can also be prepared with other fillings, including white beans (shiro-an), green beans (uguisu-an), sesame (goma-an), and chestnuts (kuri-an). Its name is a compound word, joining an, the sweet paste, with pan, bread.^[1]

Anpan was first made in 1875 in the Meiji era, as western bakeries gained popularity in Japan for the first time.^[2] Its creator, Yasubei Kimura [ja] (木村安兵衛 Kimura Yasubei), a samurai who lost his job with the rise of the Imperial Japanese Army and the dissolution of the samurai as a social class.^[3] The Meiji era was a period in which Japan was becoming increasingly modernized, and many samurai who lost their jobs were given work that was totally new to them. The role of a baker was one such job.

One day, while wandering around the area where many employed in new jobs worked, Kimura found a young man making bread, and decided to start his own bakery, named Bun'eidō (文英堂), the first owned in Japan by a Japanese person.^[1]
s In 1874, he moved to Ginza and renamed the bakery Kimuraya (木村屋), now Kimuraya Sohonten (ja:木村屋總本店). At that time, however, the only recipe for bread known in Japan was for making a salty and sour-tasting bread, ill-suited to Japanese tastes at the time. Kimura thus figured out how to make bread akin to manjū, raising the dough with traditional sakadane liquid yeast. He then filled the bread with a bean paste wagashi and sold the resulting rolls as snacks. Anpan became popular not only because of its taste, but also because the Japanese were interested in anything new and foreign at that time,^{[citation needed]} In Kimura's original formulation, two anpan were sold: those with white sesame seeds atop, and others with poppy seeds atop.^[1]

Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken later acquired a fondness for anpan after Kimura, via chamberlain Yamaoka Tesshū, prepared it for them to eat during hanami. Concerned with their appearance, he decorated them with a salt-pickled sakura in the middle of each bun. These anpan were presented to the emperor and empress on April 4, 1875, after which the emperor requested anpan from Kimura on a regular basis. Because of its newfound association with royalty, the popularity of anpan, and bread as a whole, increased throughout Japan.^{[citation needed]}

By the early 20th century, anpan were popularly perceived to be prepared the day before, bringing concerns that it could grow stale and harm children consuming the rolls. A description in the period of schoolchildren described around a quarter forgoing their lunchboxes for anpan.^[4] Today, anpan have become integrated into the national identity, held out as among the few "Japanese breads".^[5]

Unlike the steamed manjū that anpan is modelled on, anpan is baked or fried.^[1] Along with the original poppy seed and white sesame seed toppings, modern bakeries, including the still extant Kimuraya, sell anpan with a range of toppings including salt-pickled cherry blossoms. Varieties with different fillings are also now sold, including ones containing chocolate, curry, custard, and pork chops.^[1]

"Anpan" is often used as slang for recreational inhalation of paint thinner.^[6]

The picture book and anime series Anpanman is about a superhero whose head is made of anpan. By 2017, five museums based on the franchise existed in cities across Japan.^[5]

The anime and picture book character Kogepan is an anthropomorphized burned anpan.^[7]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anpan.

• Kimuraya Sohonten (in Japanese), retrieved 21 March 2006.
• The Birth of Anpan, She Japan, retrieved 21 March 2006.