Memories of Melon Bread(メロンパン,melonpan) - The Poor Inventions of the Japanese.
In Japan, there’s melon bread(メロンパン,melonpan) and melon soda(メロンソーダ). And both of them are far removed from actual melons. For example, melon bread is bread with its surface baked with cookie dough and sugar. There’s no melon in it. Melon soda doesn’t contain juice of melon. All it has is soda, sugar, flavoring, and green coloring. So why do foods and drinks with no melon at all have the name 'melon'? That’s a story from our grandfathers’ and great-grandfathers’ generations. Back when times were Poor and foreign fruits were rare, they gave the name of these fruits to bread and soda. In recent years, melon bread with actual melon juice has appeared. But hardcore melon bread fans see this as heresy. And rightly so. That’s an insult to the memories of our ancestors.
Nowadays, it's the age of globalization, and Japanese culture is known overseas. But there are still things that hardly other countries understand. Food especially has a lot of that. These things are tied to a people's memories. Knowledge can be passed on, but memory isn't easily transmitted.
Sorry for getting off topic. I just wanted to put into words, even a little, the complex feeling that mixes cheapness and nostalgia when we eat melon bread or drink melon soda. It might be a pointless struggle. I'm probably failing at it.
Finally, if you ever find a rugby ball-shaped bread in a Japanese supermarket, that's the prototype of melon bread. It's called Sunrice(サンライス) or Sunrise(サンライズ), and these days you can only see this version in the Western Japan. The taste… I’m not that fond of it. What I like is the relatively “new” melon bread. The one loaded with chocolate chips. So it goes.