Since the 1960s, Tsuruya Bakery has been making sarada pan, or “salad bread” in the town of Kinomoto in Japan’s Shiga prefecture. Salad bread, the bakery’s flagship item, consists of a long, soft white bun that is split and smeared with kewpie mayonnaise and pickled radish, and sold for ¥180. The bakery claims to sell 500 sandwiches per day, primarily to locals but also to tourists, many traveling to Kinomoto specifically for this unique treat.
Salad bread was invented after World War II as an initiative to increase the caloric value of lunches for school children. The first iteration of salad bread consisted of bread, mayonnaise, and cabbage, but the cabbage ended up making the bread soggy, thus unappealing to the discerning tastes of local children. In order to give the sandwich a better shelf life, the bakery swapped out the fresh cabbage for pickled radish.
While salad bread is probably Kinomoto’s best-known food item, it is not the Tsuruya Bakery’s best-seller. That distinction goes to its sandouitchi or “sandwich”: two pieces of fresh-baked sliced round white bread with a single piece of fish-based “ham” and smear of kewpie mayonnaise. Like many other iconic mononyms, it is known for being simple yet undeniable, and a crowd favorite.
Tsuruya Bakery is a must-stop for visitors to Kinomoto, a town that was once an important resting point on the trails from Kyoto to Kanazawa during the Edo period. Nowadays, the tranquil town of fewer than 9,000 residents receives mostly national tourists visiting nearby Lake Biwa, but it has more to offer than just historic sandwiches. Kinomoto is also home to the fourth-oldest sake brewery in Japan, family run and now operated by its 14th generation sake master. There are also small-scale soy sauce breweries in Kinomoto who have been producing soy sauce for decades, as well.
