Bread and Japanese bakeries
In Japan, as in many other Asian countries, rice is a staple food. Rice has played an important role in the social and economic history of Japan and, up to a certain time, was even used to pay taxes. Following the Meiji Revolution, Japanese cuisine became oriented toward the West. Bread became very popular and now occupies an important place in the culture of Japanese cuisine. Step into any Japanese bakery and you’ll find a huge variety of delicious food: everything from melt-in-your-mouth candy and French baguettes to shrimp rolls and sausages in dough.
The Japanese also invented new kinds of bread, such as an-pan (a Japanese sweet roll usually filled with red bean paste) and curry bread [ang] (well-fried dough with Japanese curry). In addition to regular bread, some bakeries make rice bread [ang] (a special kind of bread made from rice flour) in hopes of increasing rice consumption.
