先日ポンパドールの前を通ったら、「チーズバタール５３才」と焼かれた巨大なカンパーニュに釘付け。そう言えば先日夫がチーズバタールの事を語ってたな。。。

先日、「ポンパの前を通るならばチーズの入っているアレ買っといて。」と、夫にショートメールをしました。正式名を知らず、“チーズの入っているアレ”で通じるかなぁとふと思ったのですが、違う物が来ても良いやと。夫が帰宅すると、「買って来たよ」とチーズバタールをテーブルにぽんと、置きました。そうそう、コレ。「“チーズの入っているアレ”でよく分かったね」とうなずくと、「ポンパの“チーズの入っているアレ”と言えば、これしか無いでしょ」とニコリ。

私は神戸っ子なので、ポンパ出会ったのは横浜に来てからの２０代。初めて差し入れにもらった時、バタールにチーズかぁとあまりピンとしなかったのですが、いざトースターで温めていただくと、意外と美味しく、たまーに食べたくなります。夫にこれ美味しいねと言うと、子供の頃、元町土産によく父がこのパンを買って来てくれたって。彼の自宅では定番中の定番なのだとか。

彼曰く、バタールにチーズを最初に入れたのはポンパドールが元祖だとか。バケットの中にチーズなんて邪道だとフランス人に怒られそうな閃きだったけど、これがポンパドールの大ヒット商品になったとか。あれから５３年経ったって事ですね。浜っ子ならば定番ですね、でも、買った事が無いひとはぜひ一度お試しあれ。トースターで軽く焼くのがおすすめの食べ方です。

As I was walking along, I saw a huge campagne with a decoration saying [Cheese bâtard 53 yrs]. The bakery with this campagne is call Pompadour, a Yokohama based bakery established in 1969. Pompadour started as a small french style bakery in an area call Motomachi in Yokohama. Since Motomachi is a popular shopping area for the foreigner, Pompadour was not the only bakery in this area but soon became the No. 1 bakery in Yokohama.

Motomachi was a place to catch something new. It was a foreigner district in Yokohama, so therefore a hub for something new. This attracted a lot of young generation and became a place to come and hang around. Pompadour’s opening attracted the young and curious especially when they introduced a red paper bags to fit the freshly baked baguettes. The long red paper bags became a fashion icon, buying a french bread (which was not so common back then) was such an exotic & new things todo. A lot of pictures of these fashionable kids walking up and down the streets with this red paper bag became a buzz which attracted more people to this area. This red paper bag was then called Pompadour red and became the bakery’s standard.

Later on the creation of Cheese bâtard cemented it’s popularity. My husband told me that Cheese bâtard was a big hit. Before then, there were no bâtard with cheese inside. French must have hated it because it is not authentic at all but Japanese loved it.

Japanese loves soft breads and grown up eating soft rolled bread (table bread) as elementary school lunches. Kids will slice it in half and add butter (margarin back then) jams, etc. A lot of local bakery will bake with sweeten azuki beans, custard cream or even with curry sauce stuffings. It sounds like a doughnut but much lighter. Japanese people are used to a bread with something inside so when the owner of Pompadour came up with a cheese stuffed bâtard ( not a french cheese but more of an American processed cheese, which is also interesting) it was a big hit! It was like a “Why wasn’t this existed before ?” kind of a reaction and soon, everyone came to Motomachi just for this bread.

I myself was not brought up in Yokohama but in another exotic port city call Kobe (near Osaka or Kyoto) so I didn’t know about Pompadour until I moved to Yokohama. Kobe is famous for bread, it’s a bread city with tons of good (authentic) German and French breads. When I was first gifted Pompadour’s Cheese bâtard, I was like, what the f*** is this?? But when I actually tasted it, because the bâtard’s shell is not as hard as a authentic ones (which might upset the French) the bread blended really well with the cheese inside. I guess this is one of those French-Japanese hybrid kind of food. You know how Asians are good at adapting foreign culture and make it their own, I know, because I’m Thai and most of Thai are made up of these kind of genius creations LOL !