One of the many fun things about Japan is that a very large number of bakeries in Japan claim to be “Scandinavian” bakeries (occasionally, they claim to be French). The puzzled Scandinavian visitor who enters them will, of course, find nothing (except perhaps a long loaf of fresh Parisian bread) which is remotely recognizable to them, or, when they are, will be shocked to find out what lurks within the walls of a delicious-looking pastry.
It was thus amusing to me to find a small Chinese-run “Japanese bakery” here in Cambridge, MA (in Porter Square). With the exception of a few unfamiliar items, however, it did, in fact, sell authentically “Japanese Scandinavian” bakery products.
Are you talking about the bakery stand in the middle of the atrium, in front of the Gap?
Haha! Ya, I think that is it! On the little island there in front of the curry and the sushi place! Do you see the “Japanese bakery” labels (or it may have been in french or something japonois or whatever) on their bread bags and such?
The Japanese seemed to have exported this sort of simulacrum of European baking to the rest of East Asia (whether this was a colonial cruelty I don’t know). There are plenty of bakeries in Korea selling products only loosely based on bread as we know it and I also remember coming across a few in China (Hangzhou in particular). I have two rules for enjoying this sort of bakery: don’t go in expecting to find any bread and learn to like red bean paste.
Those are good rules Kotaji – but I never could get to like the red bean paste so I ended up adopting my own favorites amongst the mystery pastries.
There is a real Japanese bakery in Brookline, called Japonaise, though. It’s right in front of the St. Mary’s T stop on the C line.
i luve the bakery @ porter sq.
acutally i notice that too when i was in tokyo last summer that some bakery claim to be french or scandinavian. kekekeke.
take care of such