Stick Pan Day

November 11th is "Stick Bread Day" or Stick Pan Day スティックパンの日 in Japanese. The anniversary was established by Yamazaki Bread Co., Ltd., a leading baking manufacturer in Japan, who make a convenient product of a bag of stick bread that is widely available in Japan. "Stick Pan" is synonmous with Yamazaki Bread, but in essence it can mean any long, thin shaped bread, such as the one pictured.

Stick bread is quite like what we call a baguette in Europe, in shape, but stick bread is not quite as hard. It is usually soft and easy to eat, so it appeals to children. It makes a convenient food snack or a breakfast on a go. You can get different types of stick pan too. For example, there is stick pan with chocolate chips in it. When my kids were small and we had to be out early in the morning, I would sometimes pick them up stick pan to eat as breakfast in the car. It would fill them up, wasn't overly sweet and was less messy than say croissants!

November 11th, also written as 11/11, was chosen as the anniversary because it looks like stick pan lined up in a row! There are several other stick shaped food with anniversaries today, November 11th, for the same reason. Such as Pocky, Pretz, Umaibo, Fish sausage among others.