BREAD CRUMB

Panko, the brand of bread crumb used in Japanese cuisine, derives its name from the Japanese words for “bread”, pan, and “crumb”, ko. Interestingly, if you speak a Romance language, the word pan may look familiar to you. This is because the Japanese learned how to make bread from Portuguese sailors in the sixteenth century, and they also borrowed the Portuguese word for bread, pão (which sounds similar to pan). This cross-cultural exchange is not unique to the word panko; for example, the word tempura also has Portuguese origins. The -ko part of the word can be traced back to an Old Japanese noun pronounced ko, meaning “powder”. It’s fascinating to see how two distinct language families came together to create a word for something as simple as bread crumbs!