三角蒸しぱん

In the tradition of spotted dick and Boston brown bread Japan has its own steamed cakes. Appearing recently in my local (Walmart-owned) Seiyu was this thick and big wedge from our friends at Daily Yamazaki (the baking and convenience store concern). The 三角蒸しぱん (Three-Cornered Steamed Bread), the 黒 (dark) version is a spongy trifle flavored with brown sugar and rum-soaked raisins. Leavened with baking soda, it has that slightly acrid taste that actually complements the mild sweetness. The packaging markets in nostalgia with a simple drawing of the furusato in the corner. And the flavor, even for gaijin like me, takes one back to simpler times and tastes.

Steamed buns and cakes have a long tradition in this neck of the woods, but there's a more modern variation that, again, plucks on the heartstrings of Japanese of a certain age. Seems that in the 20's, some clever entrepreneurs in Kansai had the idea of baking up steamed cakes and sending small armies of underpaid workers out on donkey-drawn carts with strict orders not to return until all the cakes were sold. Fast forward a bit to the post-war years and these same baking concerns revived the ass carts. Even then it was banking on the nostalgia factor.

1955 - A clever songwriting team, Minoru Toyoda and Akira Yano, with hit-making King Records wrote a song, パン売りのロバさん (Bread-selling Mr. Donkey). With the treacly voiced Keiko Kondo, the loping rhythm and hee-hawing horn, they not only had a hit, but a cultural signifier to boot. The song, played loudly, as sellers blanketed the neighborhoods of Osaka and Kyoto, made a mark, probably stronger than Hound Dog (recorded and released the same year), on a young generation of Japanese.

The donkey carts are long gone. A handful of trucks still make the rounds in a few neighborhood in Kansai. But now, sans song, you can buy a much more limited and staler selection of steamed buns at your major grocery chains. Not to celebrate the exploitation of the sorry steamed bun sellers by their baking bosses, but a certain quality, a particularity of the Japanese landscape has truly been lost, replaced with a new marketing scheme that exists solely upon nostalgia and not a single new idea. I wasn't even around for the song and the street sellers, but I kind of miss 'em. But I guess I'll just have to settle for listening to the tune on youtube while munching on a mushipan with a glass of milk. And if I want to really wallow in yet another slice of nostalgia, there's Keiko-san's thick 1960's hit, Song of the Southern Cross to indulge in.

パン売りのロバさん (Bread-selling Mr. Donkey)

1.

ロバのおじさん　チンカラリン
チンカラリンロン　やってくる
ジャムパン　ロールパン
できたて　やきたて　いかがです
チョコレートパンも　あんパンも
なんでもあります　チンカラリン

2.

赤い車は　チンカラリン
チンカラリンロン　ひいてくる
ジャムパン　ロールパン
甘くて　おいしい　いかがです
チョコレートパンに　あんパンに
どちらにしましょう　チンカラリン

3.

いつもにこにこ　チンカラリン
チンカラリンロン　こんにちは
ジャムパン　ロールパン
さあさあ　みなさん　いかがです
チョコレートパンと　あんパンと
はいはいありがと　チンカラリン

4.

晴れたお空に　チンカラリン
チンカラリンロン　鈴がなる
ジャムパン　ロールパン
よい子のおやつは　いかがです
チョコレートパンも　あんパンも
なんでもあります　チンカラリン

Song of the Southern Cross