Ode to the noodle
I am slow starting this story because I keep getting up to eat. A slurp here, a slurp there, and before you know it, I’m three-fourths of the way into, as the label advertises, “oodles of noodles,” the singular staple we find in all Asian households: ramen.
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 I am slow starting this story because I keep getting up to eat. A slurp here, a slurp there, and before you know it, I’m three-fourths of the way into, as the label advertises, “oodles of noodles,” the singular staple we find in all Asian households: ramen. Mine is chicken-flavored, and I’m heating a bowl heaped with the same meat, shredded with cilantro, fragrant from last night’s dinner, adding it to the dried 3-ounce mix. Ramen is handy comfort food: a college student’s go-to snack when cramming for finals; a commuter’s choice at the train station when there is little else other than greasy chips; an office worker’s grab-it-at-the-last-minute meal. I salute ramen, its omnipresence satisfying more than 100 million people a day, according to its official Web site, which I looked up after hearing news of the death of the ramen-noodle man earlier this month. Yes, someone actually invented it. Momofuku Ando, 96, passed away in Ikeda, Japan, having seen Nissin Foods — the company he founded — transform into a global brand. Sales of its signature brand, Cup Noodles, reached 25 billion worldwide in 2006, according to The New York Times. “There are other versions of fast noodles,” writes Lawrence Downes in an appreciation published by the paper. “There is spaghetti in a can. It is sweetish and gloppy and a first cousin of dog food. Macaroni and cheese in a box” requires inconvenient steps before it’s ready to serve compared with ramen noodles, “a dish of effortless purity. Like the egg, or tea, they attain a state of grace through a marriage with nothing but hot water.” A marriage — or a process — with plenty of fun. “Children like it. They love to see it change, melt, when it meets the liquid,” says Yong Chen, associate professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, who researches ethnic food. “It’s so popular,” Chen tells me, “because in 20th-century post-industrialization, our life has become more compact. We need something quick, not like the medieval times when people could spend as much as four hours preparing a meal. If you’re a professional doing taxes, doing financial reports, you want to be able to eat and go. “It can be a habit we pick up in college, and that’s when I started — in college. It’s similar to the rise of McDonald’s, which coincided with urbanization and the limitations in daily schedules.” How can it not be in demand, he asked, “when all you have to do is open that little bag? It saves time, saves money.” Ramen is so common that ramen is to Sapporo what baked beans are to Boston, reports Ron Konzak in “The Book of Ramen,” citing the capital of Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido, where the dish is perfect for snowy winters. It was only in 1970 that Nissin Foods introduced “Top Ramen” to the United States, sealing its place in history while competitors such as Campbell’s and Lipton scrambled to experiment with similar offerings. What I paid for a single package — 15 cents — amounts to a multibillion-dollar market with factories churning out the noodles from Europe to Asia. Indeed, travelers touring Asia can find noodle stalls from Singapore to Indonesia to Malaysia, often with long lines and steady customers, a good portion of them from the working class that was Mr. Ando’s initial target. Closer to home, go to any Asian market, and you’ll see aisles and aisles devoted to the treat, and with more textures and varieties than we can ever imagine. There’s soba, yakisoba, rice noodles, egg noodles, vermicelli, udon, lomein, iamian and so on, sprinkled with mushroom, onion, hot spices, sodium essence. Still, instant ramen outsells them all. “I have to say, I cook with this every week. It’s cheap, it’s filling, and, OK, ‘cook’ may be saying too much. I boil and swallow,” says a laughing Mimi Song, a department store salesclerk from La Habra. “A cup of noodles is simple, and it’s easy to carry.” And though its nutritional value is low, with an average of 18 percent saturated fat in each single-serving block, the world is warmer with it on our menus. “Even in my house, we always have it,” Chen says. “Just for emergency.”
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