The pullman loaf, sometimes called the "sandwich loaf" or "pan bread," is a type of bread

Bread

Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed , fried , or baked on an unoiled frying pan . It may be leavened or unleavened...

 made with white flour and baked in a long, narrow, lidded pan. The French term for this style of loaf is pain de mie

Pain de mie

Pain de mie is a type of sliced, packaged bread. "Pain" in French means "bread" or "loaf of bread" and "mie" means "crumb" in the culinary sense . In English pain de mie is most identical to pullman loaf or regular sandwich bread...

. In the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, many popular mass-produced sliced breads are actually pullman loaves; the slice of such breads are frequently square

Square (geometry)

In geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral. This means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles...

, with four flat (uncurved) crusts.

The name "Pullman" was derived from its use in the compact kitchens of the Pullman railway cars

Pullman (car or coach)

In the United States, Pullman was used to refer to railroad sleeping cars which were built and operated on most U.S. railroads by the Pullman Company from 1867 to December 31, 1968....

. The Pullman Company

Pullman Company

The Pullman Palace Car Company, founded by George Pullman, manufactured railroad cars in the mid-to-late 19th century through the early decades of the 20th century, during the boom of railroads in the United States. Pullman developed the sleeping car which carried his name into the 1980s...

is credited with inventing the lidded baking pans used to create the square loaves. Three Pullman loaves occupied the same space as two standard round-topped loaves, thus maximizing the use of space in the Pullman kitchen.