「メロンパン」なのに

[Oyaji]

The other day my wife brought home a bag of メロンパン (melon bread). I've never really liked these dome shaped lumps of bread with a sweet crust on top, but I was hungry, so I decided to eat one anyway. Half way through, I realized I couldn't detect any melon flavor.

Me: 「メロン味あまりせんね」
Wife: 「そうばい。メロンの味がするから「メロンパン」というんじゃないばい。」

My mind immediately locked up when I tried to process what she was saying. Seeing my eyes glaze up, my wife continued:

Wife: 「メロンの形に似ちょうき「メロンパン」という」

I tried to untie the knot in my brain. チョコパン has chocolate in it; クリームパン has cream (of a sort) in it; クルミパン has walnuts in it, but standard メロンパン has no melon in it - not even artificial flavoring. I checked wikipedia and it confirmed what she said (of course): melon bread gets its name from its shape, not its flavor.

I have since conducted a mini survey, and there are a surprising number of people in Japan (including my sons and most of their friends) who believe they have been eating melon flavored bread, when in fact they haven't.

There is 「メロン味のメロンパン」"melon flavored melon bread" (that should be a redundancy, but it isn't) out there, which I'm sure I've eaten, and that has no doubt added to the confusion.


Just thought I'd let you know.

[keatonatron]

That is interesting! I've never had メロンパン before, but I've often seen it at the store and I had always assumed it was melon flavored

[Zounoko]

Reminds me of a story from a great book called _Mindless Eating_. (The book really is fun -- the author runs a food lab and does experiments to see how much and what kinds of foods people eat under various controlled conditions...) But on to the story.

During WWII the chief cook (galley officer? I don't know the terminology) on a US Navy warship discovered that he hadn't received enough cherry jello before the ship sailed. There was lots of lemon jello, but quite soon, no cherry.

Pretty soon sailors were really tired of lemon jello. A fight even broke out over it.

Since the guy couldn't get resupplied, he finally decided to simply color the lemon jello red. He did. Now that it was red, sailors believed it really was cherry jello, despite the fact that it (of course) still must have tasted like lemon jello. No one came up to the cook and complained. In fact, many people told him they were glad he'd managed to get some cherry jello.

Moral of the story: We often taste what we expect to taste. (And yeah, there are at least ten more illustrations of the principle in the book -- controlled experiments rather than anecdotes.)

The Elephant's Child

[Mike Cash]

Had to be lemon-lime. There was no lemon Jell-O in the WWII years.

[two_heads_talking]

I had originally thought the sugar crystals were flavored. Looks like that assumption was wrong.. very interesting Oyaji.

[Armon]

Mike Cash wrote:
Had to be lemon-lime. There was no lemon Jell-O in the WWII years.

Acording to the history of Jell-O on the Kraft's website, Lemon was one of Jell-O's original flavor.

[keatonatron]

Mike Cash wrote:
Had to be lemon-lime. There was no lemon Jell-O in the WWII years.

Yeah, they had to ration the lemons, but there were plenty of lemon-limes to go around.

[Kagemaru]

Oyaji wrote:
I have since conducted a mini survey, and there are a surprising number of people in Japan (including my sons and most of their friends) who believe they have been eating melon flavored bread, when in fact they haven't

On that mini survey of yours, put me down as another one of those suckers believing there to be a vestige of melon...

[Mukade]

なるほど。

All this time I was trying to figure out if I was just culinarily challenged, or if I had destroyed all my tastebuds with alcohol...

Thank you for helping clear up a decade-long neurosis.

-------

And by the way, <turning up his Southern accent> yur waife sher tawlks funneh.

[Rounin T]

うるさい、うるさい、うるさい！　メロンの味をするからメロンパンと呼ぶわ！

[chchan45]

Well, pineapple buns don't contain any pineapples either, so melon pan is not the only exception.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_bun

[tanuki]

And [url=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_dick]Spotted Dick[/url] doesn't contain any...

...I hope it doesn't contain any...

[shin1ro]

Oyaji wrote:
I have since conducted a mini survey, and there are a surprising number of people in Japan (including my sons and most of their friends) who believe they have been eating melon flavored bread, when in fact they haven't.

Since I knew メロンパン doesn't have melon flavor, I'd been wondering why it was called (or why it was allowed to be called) as メロンパン... It's only a few years since I've come to know the reason.... I don't fully agree yet that its shape is like a melon.... mmm

-shin1ro

[two_heads_talking]

tanuki wrote:
And [url=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_dick]Spotted Dick[/url] doesn't contain any...

...I hope it doesn't contain any...

Well of course it does and you garnish it with currents..

[Matsumoto_hideto]

Omg how dare you insult the melon pan. Thats all I eat here in japan... Im heartbroken now...：」