Today while eating breakfast (at around 1 in the afternoon
because it is the weekend) I thought about how the shape of bread in Canada and Japan are different. In Japanese supermarkets, most of the bread I see tends to be square, and the size is roughly half a typical loaf of bread that you would see in Canada. One reason is likely that Japan is relatively hotter and more humid than Canada so the bread doesn't last as long.
Canada's typical bread loaf looks more like Kogepan:
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| Kogepan, the burnt toast |
The top is rounded, and the bottom is kind of square.
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The top part doesn't always look so perfect depending on when and where you buy
Photo credit: dunbarsystems.com |
Bread in Japanese supermarkets are almost always sliced. In Canada, you can get sliced and unsliced, which sit next to each other at the grocery store, and typically the unsliced bread is slightly cheaper.
Of course, both Canada and Japan have all sorts of different breads and bakeries available so you can often get similar breads in both countries.
★★★
Recently I watched the winter drama Mayonaka no Panya-san.
It's a slice-of-life story about a bakery that opens only from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. based on the manga by Oonuma Noriko.
While slice-of-life works well in manga and animation, I don't usually do slice-of-life dramas, but this one was decent. I watched it after a stressful time and it gave me tranquility. My chinchilla also likes relaxing shows a lot more than mystery/suspense types.
The main character Kurebayashi Yousuke is played by Takizawa Hideaki of Johnny's Entertainment.
I've known about Tackey for quite some time but have never watched any of his dramas.
(I did try to watch Antique, which was a well received story with a similar setting but didn't in the end.)
Tackey's filled out and looks cooler in his 30's, and was a good choice for the role of the kind bakery owner.
The role of boulanger went to Kiriyama Akito, who was a kid not too long ago but does a good job with this older brother character, and demonstrates that he could suit a variety of roles and age ranges. I didn't know that Kiriyama was from Johnny's as well, but looking at his personality I did inadvertently think, "He must be from Osaka." Lo and behold, I was right. (There's a sort of stereotype that the Kansai west region of Japan has more outgoing/comedic people, while Kanto east, where Tokyo is, has the more formal/proper/rigid population. It's kind of like California v.s. New York.)
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Kiriyama on the left, Takizawa on the right
Photo: jenewsdaily.wordpress.com |
What spoke to me in the first episode was when the character Nozomi, who lives at the bakery, gets picked on at school by another girl and they all end up in a parent-teacher meeting. Kurebayashi offers breads from his bakery to the student and her mother, saying that he thought maybe the two girls fought because they were hungry, since when people get hungry they become irritable
(so true), but he gets laughed off for being an idiot by the student, who says she's not hungry. Kurebayashi says,"Then what are you lacking that makes you so angry?" In Japanese, one common way to say "I'm hungry",
onaka ga hetta, more literally means "the stomach is lacking".
I am in agreement with the midnight bakery idea and have thought of the concept myself (except as a cafe). I would like to see more places come into being that allow people to have a retreat from their thoughts or troubles. Nighttime has a mysterious aura for me, and a lot of emotions and thoughts often pop up then, as do sudden urges for cake, sweets, and food in general. Though, instead of 11 p.m. I'd probably want one that starts closer to 9 p.m.
I'm sure that this drama will be the force behind a sudden income spike in the Japanese baking industry. One type of bread that is virtually nonexistent in Canada is the iconic melon bread of Japan, featured prominently in this drama. I'm not a particular fan of melon bread but I do love a really good one. Like all cakes and breads, a good melon bread from a good bakery is completely different from regular melon bread. The next chance I get to spend time in Japan, I am definitely going to find a good bakery like Boulangerie Kurebayashi. If anyone has suggestions, be sure to let me know!
