I like sandwiches for lunch. I often eat lunch in an allotted time near to my office located in a Café-abundant area of Osaka called Minami-Senba. During my petit-excursions, I have encountered some fairly surprising contents between two pieces of bread and struggled to partake without coming up with at least some kind of reasoning behind their creation.

Japan takes some "foreign objects" onto this island, changes them, and gives the new concoction to us. For example the Café Latte, rather than milk soymilk is often used or an option that not only for taste and health reasons but also to accommodate for the large number of lactose-intolerant adults in Japanese society whom grew up drinking soy milk.

Another example would be Mos Burger's rice-bun burger to ease the fix people who want to eat a burger but prefer rice to bread find themselves in at fast food restaurants. These adaptations, well, we can justify to ourselves plausible reasons for their existence. However, other adaptations can leave a westerner dumbfounded.

Three particular oddities to me were fruit and whip cream sandwiches, tuna with mashed potato sandwiches, and fried noodle sandwiches – in fact each of them sounds like something that I might have wanted to have made for my lunch during grade one and my mother absolutely forbid, for both reasons of health and public scorn.

The Fruit and Whip Cream Sandwich:
All you really want is dessert anyway, but some childhood rule continuing to lurk in your mind keeps you from reaching right for the aftermeal menu. However, when you see the 'fruit sandwich' under the meal section of the menu, that nagging similar-to-your-mother's voice is confused into silence.

This sandwich was likely invented by someone tortured by a voice from childhood, or by someone trying to lose weight – after all bread has less calories than sponge cake, the usual partner to fruits and whip cream.

The Tuna and Mashed Potato Sandwich:
I don't want to think that this combination exists only to keep material costs down. Using mashed potatoes as a filler to save on necessary tuna usage was the first plausible explanation that came to mind.

However, due to wanting to see the best possible intent whenever possible, I considered the possibility that sandwich makers in Japan add mashed potatoes in the place of mayonnaise in order to make the sandwich creamy, hold the tuna flakes together, and keep cholesterol levels to the minimum.

In Japanese Cafes, please be prepared to find mashed potato in your tuna. In fact, try to find tuna in your mashed potato when you are eating.

The Fried Noodle (Yakisoba) Sandwich:
Japanese people really have a thing for noodles - as many an Italian restaurant owner in Japan will tell you through a beaming grin.

Teishoku (set meal) often includes both rice and noodles = carbos plus carbos.

More than balance, a diners' likes are given the highest priority. But, in order to eat the craved noodles, you must be able to sit down with a plate or bowl and some utensils. In this rushed Japanese society, that kind of time is not always available – but you have to eat lunch and your favorite lunch is noodles – what should you do?

The answer some quick-minded, noodle-obsessed individual came up with was to stick the noodles into a hot dog bun, you can eat noodles in a manner acceptable to society whie continuing to be in motion – desire satisfied and time limits kept.

Without pondering the logic behind its history, a Yakisoba Sandwich, would appear to be a humoristic poor nutrition option. If justifying the origins of your sandwich are not appealing, my safest recommendation for a sandwich is to go with the egg – an egg is an egg even in Japan.