ジャポネーズ ベーカリー
ジャポネーズ ベーカリーの食パン、ヘビークリームはとってもすばらしい味です。まず、まるで、ケーキのスポンジのように限りなく柔らかく、それでいてちょっとグルテンのこしが効いてて、一口食べると甘くないんだけれどクリームのまろやかさが口の中にふわっと広がって、生きててよかったと、しみじみ感じさせるアメイジングな食パンです。お店は、ボストンにあります。ちょっと遠いけど、試してみる価値、絶対あります。ちなみに、そのお店についていろいろ情報をのせているウェッブは、Muninn.net/blog/2005/04/japanese-bakery.htmlと、www.mamacooks.com/index.php?page=articles& display=24&addcomment=24です。WHITE BREAD, JAPANESE-STYLE Japonaise Bakery Japonaise may be a French/Japanese bakery, but here's where you can get the ne plus ultra of American white bread. Shoku pan means "white bread" in Japanese. It comes plain or with cream added. The cream shoku pan is just a touch sweeter and richer; think Wonderbread that hit the lottery. Compared to its poorer cousin, the cream version is more perfectly square, softer, and has a finer crumb. Shoku pan even flattens out when you press it down (though it springs back more that you-know-what). I didn't try rolling it into tiny bread spitballs the way I used to when I was little, but I'm sure if they did, they would shoot even farther than those made with Wonderbread. Hiroko Sakan has owned Japonaise for a decade with her partner, baker Yoshi Inada. She herself invokes the Wonderbread comparison when talking about her bread. Hers, of course, lacks the preservatives and what she desribes as "a bad smell when you open the bag." No need to worry about the smell of cream shoku pan, which is fresh, sweet and enticing. Not suprisingly, bread-making in Japan is not so ancient. Rice is this country's tradtional staple. Portuguese missionaries introduced bread to Japan four centuries ago, but this foreign use of grains didn't catch on until the late 1800s. I don't fancy myself a white bread kind of woman, so I wasn't expecting much from shoku pan. But after a first bite, I decided to have a little bit more. "Just one tiny piece" quickly turned into two and a half slices. Sakan says what distinguishes her bakery's white bread from others is the technique used when baking, "and love." Who am I to argue? It was either love or the devil that made me gorge myself on white bread one night. Either way, I didn't regret it. Sakan says shoku pan is eaten in Japan as a breakfast bread (it makes divine toast), a snack (since it's light), and for sandwiches. If you like white bread, then cream shoku pan might be what you've been looking for. If you don't like white bread, you might just find yourself sneaking a slice in between your fancy, chewy, trendy sourdough baguettes.?