The Uncertain Origins Of Melon Bread

There are some things we know for sure about melon bread. This yeasted baked good has nothing to do with cantaloupe or any other melon. Its most distinguishing feature is the crunchy, sugary coating on top. Part of a broader category of sweet breads called "kashipan," melon bread is beloved in Japan and perfect for anyone needing a little pick-me-up. Sometimes filled with cream or flavored with chocolate, fruit, or matcha (an ingredient at the heart of Japanese tea culture), melon bread is also called "sunrise bread." Both names possibly refer to the cross-hatched pattern of the sugar coating, which can resemble a melon's skin or the rays of the rising sun.

What we don't know for sure is where this delicacy came from. However, there are several theories. The most intriguing traces the bread's roots to Armenia — specifically, to an Armenian baker named Hovhannes (or Ivan) Ghevenian Sagoyan, who ended up in Russia, working for the House of Romanov. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Sagoyan left for China and found a job baking at a hotel in the city of Harbin. There, he caught the eye of a wealthy Japanese businessman named Okura Kihachiro. Okura invited Sagoyan to work at Tokyo's storied Imperial Hotel, cofounded by Okura in 1890. That's where (so the story goes) Sagoyan invented melon bread, or "melonpan," as it's called in Japanese. What gave Sagoyan the inspiration? No one knows. However, this isn't the only melonpan origin story. 

Other theories have a bit less international intrigue. According to one, a bread similar to today's melonpan was invented at the Kobe bakery Kinseido, where it was initially called "sanuraisu" ("sunrise"), a nod to pre-World War II warship production in nearby Kure; the flag of the Japanese navy depicted a rising sun. In the 1930s, bakers started using a rice mold called a meron-gata (literally, "melon mold" in English) to shape the bread — hence the other name. Yet another theory also holds that a differently shaped version was invented in 1952 by a baker at a food co-operative called the Kobe Consumers' Union.

Today, melonpan is just one example of a delectable bread culture that stretches across Japan. Melonpan and other sweet breads trace their roots to anpan, a bun filled with red bean paste invented by a former samurai in the late 1800s. Anpan sparked a national passion for a whole category of light, feathery yeasted snacks that remain popular today, including not just melonpan but also creampan (filled with cream) and jampan (filled with jam). And then, there's the lightest of them all: shokupan (aka milk bread), an ethereal loaf made with a paste of flour and milk that makes one heck of a club sandwich. It may even have been invented by a protege of Ivan Sagoyan's.