Anpan (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), sesame (goma-an) and chestnut (kuri-an).
Anpan was first made in 1875, during the Meiji period, by a man called Yasubei Kimura, a samurai who lost his job with the rise of the Imperial Army (made up of conscripts) and the dissolution of the samurai as a social class. The Meiji era was a ...
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Anpan (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), sesame (goma-an) and chestnut (kuri-an).
Anpan was first made in 1875, during the Meiji period, by a man called Yasubei Kimura, a samurai who lost his job with the rise of the Imperial Army (made up of conscripts) and the dissolution of the samurai as a social class. The Meiji era was a period in which Japan was becoming increasingly westernized, and many samurai who lost their jobs were given work that was totally new to them. The Western role of baker was one such job.
One day, while wandering around the area where many people employed in Western jobs worked, Kimura Yasubei found a young man making breads. Yasubei felt that it was time for Japanese culture to become more Westernised, and so he started a bakery named Bun'eidō (文英堂). In 1874, He moved to Ginza and renamed the bakery Kimuraya (木村屋). At that time, however, the...
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