Nika's Culinaria - Eat With Your Eyes

In the appreciation of Mr. Momofuku Ando, the late inventor of ramen noodles (1-9-07 ed New York Times by Lawerence Downes) Downes said,

"Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Give him ramen noodles, and you don't have to teach him anything".

Mr. Downes does a beautiful job of summing up the pros and cons of ramen-eating, it all rang so true. Its a beautiful appreciation of an interesting man who sought to make cheap good eats and who ended up feeding a globe of students.

I am not ashamed to admit that I rather like ramen noodles or that my kids like them.

I am sure there are a million million different ways to make them. Here is my way. I boil it 3 minutes, drain completely, add a bit of butter and then about 1/4 of the seasoning MSG package. I mix and wolf. Sometimes when I am really hungry (tho I did this more back in the grad school days), I add a raw egg after draining the noodles. I put it back on the stove until the egg is cooked (I am not all that fond of salmonella).

My husband makes it more like a soup.

Thanks to the ramen-conditioning I received as a youngin I have moved on to more adventerous territories like nuclear hot Korean ramen and miso soups directly from Japan that have no english on the package whatsoever. I just wing the directions and try to guess at the intended flavor(s).

Momofuku-san, we will raise a bowl of noodles in your memory today.

Some interesting links:

Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum Wiki entry

Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum (新横浜ラーメン博物館, Shin-Yokohama Rāmen Hakubutsukan) official site

Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum, Tokyo Food Page