Anpan
Japanese filled sweet bun
title: "Anpan" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["japanese-breads", "japanese-desserts-and-sweets", "sweet-breads", "legume-desserts"] description: "Japanese filled sweet bun" topic_path: "geography/japan" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anpan" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Japanese filled sweet bun ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox food"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Anpan |
| image | Anpan 001.jpg |
| image_size | 300px |
| country | Japan |
| region | Ginza, Tokyo |
| creator | Yasubei Kimura |
| course | Dessert |
| type | Sweet roll |
| main_ingredient | Red bean paste |
| :: |
| name = Anpan | image = Anpan 001.jpg | image_size = 300px | caption = | alternate_name = | country = Japan | region =Ginza, Tokyo | creator = Yasubei Kimura | course = Dessert | type = Sweet roll | served = | main_ingredient = Red bean paste | variations = | calories = | other = ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Ginza_kimuraya_Bread.jpg" caption="Kimuraya in [[Ginza"] ::
Anpan 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.
History
Anpan was first made in 1875 in the Meiji era, as western bakeries gained popularity in Japan for the first time. Its creator, (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. 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) 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, In Kimura's original formulation, two anpan were sold: those with white sesame seeds atop, and others with poppy seeds atop.
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.
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. Today, anpan have become integrated into the national identity, held out as among the few "Japanese breads".
Food
Unlike the steamed manjū that anpan is modelled on, anpan is baked or fried. 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.
In popular culture
"Anpan" is often used as slang for recreational inhalation of paint thinner.
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.
The anime and picture book character Kogepan is an anthropomorphized burned anpan.
References
References
- Smil, Vaclav. (2012). "Japan's Dietary Transition and Its Impacts". The MIT Press.
- Jacob, Jeanne. (2022). "Food Cultures of Japan: Recipes, Customs, and Issues". Greenwood.
- Nakayama, Keiko. (2006). "Encyclopedia: World of Wagashi".
- Mitsuda, Tatsuya. (2017). "Feeding Japan: The Cultural and Political Issues of Dependency and Risk". Palgrave Macmillan Cham.
- Sheng, Annie. (2017). "Feeding Japan: The Cultural and Political Issues of Dependency and Risk". Palgrave Macmillan Cham.
- Constantine, Peter. (1994-06-15). "Japanese Slang: Uncensored".
- (12 April 2021). "焦げて、やさぐれて、後向き……人気キャラクター「こげぱん」約15年ぶり新刊発売".
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::