September 20, 2022 • 31 mins
Today, instant noodles are ubiquitous. You can find them in almost every grocery store, in any number of flavors sold by any number of brands -- but where did they come from? In part one of this two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max dive into the story of Momofuku Ando, and how a sudden realization in post-WWII Japan inspired an idea that would go on to change the world.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous history is a production of I heart radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always,
so much for tuning in. Shout out to our returning
super producer, Mr Max Williams, recently back from some adventures
in the far west. WHO's that sneaking in the phones
(00:49):
black back? You just, you just make that song up?
Or is that a reference to something? It's it's my
sound cue. Is it really? Yeah, what is that right
now like? Is this something that I should have noticed
(01:14):
prior to to just now? Or you're you're okay? Well, Jeez,
I feel like a real hell, real heal. Um. We're
not talking about wrestling, though today. It would have been
a great segue if we were, because the heel is
like the bad guy in wrestling. It's also that part
of your foot that you're supposed to walk on. Was
Heel to toe, right, so hell first, but we're talking
(01:34):
about something else today. Uh, we're talking about noodles, or
is that like to refer to them cheekily? Eat nudes,
but not those kind of nudes, not the ones that
you send or don't send. Never send unsolicited for the
love of God, just don't do it. I'd like to
give a special shout out to every other fellow pseudo
(01:54):
prepper or prepper light in the audience today. Ridiculous his
story and shout out if you as well, have a
secret stash of instant noodles. They have taken over my pantry,
kind of like, uh, a dried version of Kad zoo
in a nifty package with a variety of ingredients. Yeah,
(02:17):
Japan has given the world so many cool inventions. I
first learned about this story years ago when I was
writing a neat little kids series called stuff of genius,
which is an animated show about various inventors. We've been
going through an inventor phase here on ridiculous history. Uh,
(02:38):
this is this is who we are. We we love inventors.
We love inventors. We are I wanted to note that
this is not a case of an inventor who died
at the hands of their own invention, but this is, yeah,
one heck of a story, uh, and it's probably one
of my favorite inventors stories, because noodles are so ubiquitous.
(03:04):
Right Ramen, you probably think of it here in the
US as Ramen, but there are so many brands. There's
Cup of noodle. There's all sorts of stuff, and today
we're going to explore the story of how these came
to be and why Momofuku and Oh deserves all the accolades. Uh,
you know, that's that's why there are those restaurants named
(03:26):
after him. He's that big of a deal. You know,
those are those are fancy, fancy restaurants. Only there's like
a bunch of them. I've only been to I went
to one that I think isn't there anymore. It's called
some bar with the momofuku noodle bar is still, I think,
a pretty, pretty hot ticket. David Chang. Yeah, and he
also has a you know, a line of products you
can get, including very fancy instant noodles and this line
(03:50):
of Chili Crisps, which I highly recommend. You can get
like these. There's like a like a truff Ali one
chili crunch rather, a super spicy one and a regular one,
and I got all three in their absolutly fantastic and
we are not sponsored by Momofuku, but you know, we're
certainly down. I think we both like to cook and
like a little spice. Obviously both like needles. Ben I
want to posit something. We talked about adventures who were
(04:11):
killed by their own inventions and mentioned that. Of course,
Mafukuando was not one of those tragic cases, but can
you imagine if he was? Wouldn't that be the stuff
of comic books? And he accidentally like deep fried himself
into a cube of noodles and an ended out in
the package going out with the rest of the products. Stuff.
There's an e c Uh there there are several stories
from EC comics that have things very close to what
(04:34):
you're describing sort of way. They're already grizzly comic book
versions of that reality. And of course I'm talked about
stuff like tales from the crypt vault of terror and
so on. But UH, if we're talking ramen and nut
body horror are our story actually traces all the way
(04:54):
back to four hundred C e. This is when the
first Chinese immigrants that we know about arrived in Japan
and over the centuries, as you know, uh, mainland China
and Japan didn't always get along, to put it very,
(05:17):
very lightly and very high level, but there was a
lot of cultural exchange going back and forth between these
two communities because of their proximity and Chinese immigrants introduced
or popularized many things in Japanese culture, either directly or indirectly.
We're talking about stuff like the art of papermaking, Buddhism and,
(05:41):
of course, new kinds of food, especially the weak noodle.
A lot of this is coming from a wonderful little
mental floss article by Michelle Deb Zac called a brief
history of Ramen. You don't know, if people I saw
the very first Chinese noodles that were served in Japan
(06:02):
back then, they wouldn't think of them as Modern Day ramen. Instead,
these things were called Sina Soba. Yeah, and Sina is Um,
a sort of antiquated Japanese word, Um referring to China
and UH, which kind of makes sense, I guess. Um
(06:22):
Phonetically speaking, Sina China, and Soba as a term, as
you should describe any noodle, and we know that today,
although Soba, it kind of does tend to refer to
a specific thickness of noodle. But I get a little
kind of that confused but overwhelmed when it comes to
all the different types of noodle. And I think you
know Soba noodles can come in various thickness. They really
(06:44):
are just kind of like like referred to as hand
pulled type noodles. There's a really great restaurant there was,
I don't know if it's around anymore in Atlanta, called SOBA,
but yeah, it was a term that at the time,
um in ancient Japan, was a staple food and was
used to refer to all those different types of doodles,
specifically kind made with buck wheat. Yeah, yeah, and look,
(07:06):
I'm a yes all noodles kind of guy. I have
always I've always tried to find the ramen shop in town.
It's up there with Casadas for me and that's, you know,
that's real personal statement there and burying my soul. So
there are when we asked about how this modern stuff
comes about, the one that is widely accepted now again,
(07:30):
this is not dried noodles yet, just modern ramen. The
one that's widely accepted starts in the early twentieth century
in Tokyo at a noodle shop called Rye Rye Kent.
(07:50):
This was a Chinese outfit. The cooks were Chinese and
they popularized Ramen by serving that here. Will describe it.
I'm gonna describe it like I'm doing a weird commercial
Max fresh and pooled wheat noodles in a salty drop
(08:13):
top with roasted poor fish cake, and no buy one,
get one free. No, they didn't do that, but these
ingredients are still considered classic toppings today. You'll find almost
any Roman place you visit. This coincides with Japan becoming
increasingly industrialized, which means now there's a growing urban workforce
(08:36):
and they need something that is quick to eat, that
is inexpensive and that is filling right and it it's
just bonus points if it's also really tasty. So Raman
checks all the boxes. And noodles, these kinds of handful
dudles that we're talking about, are still versatile. You can have,
you know, a kind of dryer stir fry with some
(08:58):
meat like you describe. You can have something that's in
a broth, which I guess typically would be more of
what you would refer to as a ramen or a
noodle soup. Um, but they're just great. You can have
a chilled you ever had chilled noodles? They're they're very
big in Korea, I believe. Yeah, I am also eat
the chilled noodles. It makes a lot of sense when
you're in an area where there's a hot, humid summer.
(09:21):
Um I'm usually gonna go hot noodles before but in
my in my Doomsday Pantry, I have right now like
uh ten pack of the little cold noodle kits, and
I know the kids are not the same as making
it from scratch, but if you're ever in a Korean
or Japanese restaurant that has cold noodles on the menu,
(09:45):
give them a try and you're gonna be surprised, promise.
World War Two brings a new ascendency to ramen. Amid
all the horrors and atrocities of this time period, there
were a lot of food shortages. A lot of people
(10:06):
had food insecurity, meaning they weren't sure where their next
meal would be coming from. Street food vendors were outlawed
by the allied occupation and this was a move to
conserve rations, and this was actually continuation of a move
that had started during the war. So people overwhelmingly just
(10:29):
bought ramen from food stalls. Right until foodstalls are outlawed,
the only two ways left to get it are to
make it at home or to find it on the
black market. And this is the thing people might not know. Yeah,
there was a black market of illegal food vendors. They
were pretty common in Japan. Well, and remember too, I
(10:50):
mean we're we're at a time where, yeah, there was
food instability, but also a lot of the stuff wasn't
shelf stable. So, you know, to your point about Doomsday
prepping or even just meal prepping or just trying to,
you know, store up for the winter, it's very difficult
to do because, as we know, if you you hand
pull these noodles, you have to have fresh ingredients, you
(11:12):
have to have the know how and you have to
have the facility to do it in and you kind
of got to eat them right away, unless you drive
them out, which again wasn't really it wasn't really something
quite cracked yet. Yeah, yeah, it's uh, I call it
it's I call it French fry rules. Right. French fries
are not great unless they're fresh, uh, and they can
be tricky to reheat them, wealth though it is possible
(11:35):
if you eat some rabid right, just like fun, and
then you put it in the fridge and take it
out later and attempt to reheat it with all the
ingredients mixed together, it's just not gonna it's gonna hit different.
It's not going to be the same, and this is
something people are, of course aware of. Uh. In even
(11:55):
the dire times of World War Two, also, these gold
food vendors played a very important part in society because
government rations wouldn't come on time. They could be weeks late.
There was also decreased agricultural production, as during any conflict. Right,
see what's happening in Ukraine right now. Uh. And there
(12:19):
might be simple human mismanagement of resources. I did not
know this, uh, until doing some earlier research, but thousands
and thousands of street food vendors were arrested for selling
ramen after the war, and they were working for the Akuza. Yeah,
(12:42):
that really does add a whole other layer to it,
doesn't that, when you think about it, Um Yakuza being,
of course, the infamous Um Organization in Japan responsible for
organized crime, or as this is. This is a true story, folks,
about going to get two into the details, but one
time I was in Japan and accidentally hung out with
(13:04):
the owner of a Karaoke bar, or a bar that
had karaoke, uh, and we hung out until dawn, like
until seven am something. When he wanted to go to
another place. He owned and uh, I'm pretty sure that
he was. He was Yuh Kusa. He said he worked
in construction and sanitation and had a few interest in
(13:27):
real estate. Nicest Guy. But the the Kuza is don't
think of it the same way you would think of
like the stereotypical mob. They're also really active in UM
in helping locals after disasters historically. So it makes sense that,
and you know, I'm not saying they're good guys, I'm
just saying it makes sense that they would play a
(13:50):
role in these black markets because they're seen as helping
the locals, but they're making no mistake, they're also making
money off of this endeavor. Right. It's not entirely charity, uh,
and that's why it's organized crime and not a nonprofit organization. This,
this is maybe where we introduce the man of the hour. No,
(14:12):
Mr Momo Fuku. And Oh, what do we know about him? Yeah,
we do know a bit. Uh. He was born in Taiwan,
which has always been kind of a tumultuous region in
terms of geopolitics and in terms of governance. At the
time it was occupied by Japan, and then he moved
in nineteen thirty three to Osaka. Um. Obviously Japan was very,
(14:37):
very chaotic and torn apart by war. He was seeing
some of the kinds of things you were describing, ben
in terms of people buying noodles from stalls in in
these literal black markets. You know, these were markets where
people were illegally selling things without the you know, permission,
I guess, with the government. Um. The noodles the time
(14:58):
were made from wheat flour. The was being donated by
the US in order to keep civilians from starving. But
instead of making bread, which is what you know, the
U S would have, I guess, intended this to be
used for uh, the Japanese were using it to make noodles.
Bread wasn't really, it isn't really much of a of
a common thing. Yeah, it's it's not. It's not as common.
(15:21):
You'll you'll see it around, you know, in Sandos, in
Uh convenience stores or convenience stores. But but yeah, it
makes sense. You would take maybe this less common ingredients
and you would make something that felt more common to
your experience. We have to really paint the scene with
what and I saw here and again that stuff of
(15:44):
genius piece I mentioned. It was tough because that's an
animated short it's spent largely for children, so we had
to skip over some of the really terrible things that
and I was experiencing. He's walking through Osaka. Like you said,
it's the day after the Japanese surrender to the allied
(16:04):
forces and Osaka did escape the horrors of atomic bombs,
but that didn't mean that it escaped everything. It had
been bombed to. Heck him back, uh, you know, office buildings,
factories are destroyed and Ando is thinking what am I
(16:25):
gonna do? I have to find some kind of job,
and that's where he comes across what what you depicted earlier.
And there's a group of people who are in some rubble,
standing by some rubble behind a train station and they're
lined up outside this guy's improvised Ram install and he
says what is going on? People are willing to go
(16:48):
through this much pain and inconvenience and suffering for a
simple bowl of ramen? And then he said I get
it now. Noodle Soup is comfort food and people are
turning to Ramen for comfort. And he thinks what's worse
(17:09):
is that hunger is the biggest issue today. He even
had a quote where he later said, peace will come
to the world when all its people have enough to eat.
And so his new mission becomes, and he's not a
cook at this point, by the way, his new mission
becomes figuring out how Japan can feed its entire post
war population. Yeah, and and he's he's he's thinking about
(17:33):
this less like a cook and more like an innovator,
or he's looking at it as a problem to solve.
He knows that the Ramen, the noodle soup, is a
comfort and is nourishing, uh, and also again, that it
is a kind of a taste of home. It is
something that makes people feel a little bit of warmth and,
you know, Um, security in the face of all of
(17:54):
this hor horrific adversity. Um. So he comes up with
kind of a list of things that that need to
be accomplished by his whatever, I guess, invention he's trying
to come up with sort of like a next level
shelf stable version of Robin. So, first and foremost, it
has to taste good, uh, and then secondly, in importance,
probably first honestly, is that it has to be non perishable,
(18:19):
has to be be able to be prepared quickly. He
specifically dialed in less than three minutes, presumably because there's
no time to waste. Right. I mean I guess it
really was a calculation of you know, maybe you don't
have more than three minutes because you might be in
a in a dangerous situation. Uh. Needs to be affordable and,
of course, needs to be safe to eat and relatively healthy.
(18:42):
We'll get that part of it a little later, right, right, right. Uh. Well,
what is safe and healthy? Right? At this point he's
probably thinking something that won't give you food poisoning, something
that won't make you sick, uh, and will deliver calories.
You know, two people who need energy. And he says, look,
(19:02):
I also want people to be able to eat these
at home so they don't have to go out in
possibly dangerous areas, right, and wait like those poor folks
by the rubble of the train station. So he builds
a laboratory shed in his backyard and you can see
a you can see reproduction of this at the Cup
(19:24):
Noodles Museum in Japan. It's cool. I love Japanese Museum. So,
of course, like any other inventor, he doesn't have U
he doesn't have immediate success. Right. He has the lightbulb
moment in his head. But then you get to the
the sweaty part, the practical application of the dream. Uh.
(19:44):
It is not until when he he hits on the
thing that will really change the game for for his
invention and therefore for the world. He's looking at his wife, Missoko,
and she is frying to her up and he goes, Huh,
the oil takes the moisture out of what she's cooking.
(20:06):
And then he says, hang on, fried dried noodles can
be remoisturized if you boil them in water. And he's
sort of yes, and in himself, like any like any
good improvisation game, he's going yes, and seasoning powder or
dehydrated toppings. Why not dehydrate everything? We could add those,
(20:27):
we can make so many flavors. And he says, I'M
gonna go with chicken as as my first flavor in
this new age of noodle. Why? White Chicken? That seems yeah,
apparently he thought it was kind of had this American vibe,
which is an interesting choice for for sure. I mean,
(20:50):
not only was he concerned with the American market, I
think he was just concerned with, uh, food restrictions from
various religions Um, he he. He had a feeling that
this would not only, you know, hit big in Japan
and be a very functional thing, but across the world,
and so he wanted to make sure there were no,
you know, religious food or dietary restrictions they would prevent
(21:11):
people from eating these. Um, you know, Hindus can't eat
beef and Muslims can't eat pork. But to his knowledge,
and I believe to my knowledge as well, there aren't
any religions that prohibit the consumption of chicken. And even
though you know there's I don't think it chicken has
(21:33):
ever even been waved over this thing. It's more of
just the perception of it. You know, this is a
powdered uh seasoning blend that I maybe can contained in
the original days some some sort of chicken assaults. But yeah,
it's chicken flavor the way. Lookuas you know, lemon flavored. Uh. Look,
I've always described as h you're drinking it and then
(21:54):
someone down the hall, in another room whispers the name
of the flavor and you go, I guess so, but anyway,
this is so, this is big right, and he has
a lot of foresight. I love the point about religious taboos.
And yes, of course there are. There are, uh, multiple
(22:15):
belief systems that forbid the consumption of animal flesh in general.
But he's not thinking about that. It's just like what's
the least objectionable thing, and so he lands on chicken
and he wants to make this successiful to everyone. But
it might surprise a lot of us would have been
ramen fans by necessity at some point in our lives.
(22:37):
Being very diplomatic there ramen when it first came out,
instant ramen was considered kind of a fancy thing. It
was a little bit of a splurge to get it.
It wasn't like you would see it today, where you're thinking,
I have a dollar fifty, how many of these packs
can I get? Sort of reminds me of like how
microwaves are first perceived when they came out, versus how
(22:59):
they were perceived it over time. You know, initially they
were like the wave of the future, literally though, the
micro wave of the future, and like they were all
these like, you know, cookbooks for making things in the microwave,
and then it kind of just became this like okay,
the microwave is the last ditch effort to to make something,
you know, instant or reheat a leftovers and like that.
Really is no microwave cooking per se Um. But yeah,
(23:21):
it was the same deal and it was also quite expensive.
It was because, because it was kind of a radical
idea to to do what he was doing. No one
else quite uh crack that code yet. So it was
around thirty five yen, or a buck eighty five um
when you adjust for inflation. And this also comes from
(23:41):
that fabulous mental philos article a brief history of Ramen
by Michelle dead cast and so this was really pricey,
around six times in fact, more expensive than standard noodles.
And so now and has to go into the world
of marketing and he thinks I have to sell that.
(24:03):
I need hearts and minds right converted to the Church
of instant ramen. And so he says, I'M gonna have
tasting events, I'm gonna take it directly to the public,
and this is very successful. Chicken Ramen, C H I
K I n catches on and it it blows every
(24:25):
other competitor out of the water. It's one of the
most ubiquitous foods in post war Japan. The fact that
it is so convenient to make for a lot of people.
That makes up for the cost. Prices eventually went down.
It's an economy of scale, and I think this was
also very smart of Momofuku, because he could have just
(24:47):
kept selling it at the same price point and then,
as economy of scale kicked in and it costs him
less to produce each unit, he could have pocketed the profits,
but he didn't. He stuck by his guns because he
wanted this to be a wordable. So that's that. I
think speaks highly to his character. And we had some
math here, also for mental floss, with the help of
(25:10):
our friends over at fast company, a Lisa Friedman, writing
the surprising origin story of the ICONIC Cup noodles. Here's
what here's what they did with the math. They said. Now,
if you look at it, and we're pulling these from numbers,
an average pack of ramen costs like a quarter. So
if you ate it three times a day, every day
(25:33):
for a year, you would only be spending two and
seventy five bucks for food. Of course, also, as we'll find,
you should not eat ramen three times a day for
an entire year. Just don't. Unfortunately, it's not Christmas if
it's every day right now. Yeah, it's got a whole
lot of sodium in it. I think around Uh UH
(25:53):
nearly two thousand milligrams of sodium and and every you know,
one of those Uh delectable fried wears of top ramen. Yeah, yeah,
around this time we see diversification of ramen. Different parts
of the country start having their own styles of Ramen,
(26:13):
like Tong Katsu, which is one of my favorites, which
comes from Fuko Yoka. Obviously we're not native Japanese speakers. Folks,
uh this this region is at the center of Japan's
pork industry, so it makes sense that they would make
Tom Katsu, which is again just h delicious. There was
this place in our old office called Tonton and they
(26:36):
had no right to be as good as they were.
You get the really solid and Robin. Certainly, you know,
had a big, big cop in the last you know,
ten years or so kind of you know becoming first
probably in places like New York and L A, kind
of becoming a little more chic Um, you know, outside
of just like the traditional kind of foodstall type situation
that there's maybe family run, maybe you know been around
(26:58):
longer generationally, but then kind of they're. There are these
more bespoke kind of ramen places like Tonton Um and,
you know, of course, like Mamafuku, that are all jumping
off of that tradition but then adding their own kind
of take to it. And then really the broth is
the magic. Like, if you it takes time. You know,
(27:19):
it takes time, effort and know how to really do
it right. I mean I think a traditional Dunkatsu broth
has to be boiled for over a day, sometimes even longer. Um,
there's actually a documentary about ramen that I saw on
a plane recently. I have to look it up and
see if I can find out what the name was.
But Um, you know, when you boil these pig bones,
(27:42):
you're essentially breaking down the marrow and the fat and
all of the good stuff inside the bone to create
this kind of cloudy, you know, Mommy rich broth that
really is kind of the base of the flavor of
the whole thing. And then usually, I think, a piece
of pork belly. M Yeah, I like a like an
(28:03):
egg in there as well. That's cool. Eggs that are
sort of marinated a little bit like there's like a
hard but a soft boiled eggs almost a brownish quality
because they marinate them in mirroring and so I yeah.
And then also there's UH Miso ramen. That would be
an example of Tara, the seasoning that you ladle into
the bottom of the Ramen bowl. I believe Misso ramen
(28:26):
comes from chefs in northern Hakkaido. Uh. They're the first
ones to add miso to Ramen as a as a
way of fortifying one against the cold winters, and those
winters are cold. I have a friend who actually grew
up in a very far northern area of Japan and
(28:53):
one time her contact lens case froze. Yeah, it that
cold Max and so she said she was just going.
She just went and decided she would take the morning off.
So it makes sense. So we see similar innovations across
the world in cold climates. But back to and Oh
(29:17):
he's not done yet. Well, hold up, hold up, we
I think off Mike. Folks, we have both been getting
so into instant noodles right now that no, I think
we're gonna have to take a noodle break. You want
to do you want to break and go eat some noodles? Yeah,
just briefly, and then we'll come back with UH, part
(29:38):
two of of the story of instant noodles. I think
are I think we got a little carried away with
our noodle exuberance and this one ended up being a
little longer than we expected. But all good stuff, Um,
and so look forward to part two coming at you
next time. I love noodle exuberance. Noodle Zuberants, what a
great phrase. I love the term exuberant and general that's
(30:01):
why we exuberantly. Thank UH super producer, Mr Max Williams,
returning from his time abroad. Thanks, of course, also to
guest super producer Tory Harrison, who pinch hit, pinched hit,
pinch hitted for us. Uh. She also creates ridiculous news.
Checked that show out. Who Else? Who Else? Who Else? Oh,
(30:24):
Christopher Rociota is here in spirit, of course, also a
big fan of noodles. I was just in his town
about a week ago and he turned me onto a
fantastic robin shop. He's a good dude. He's a good dude.
Thanks also to Eve's Jeff coat, thanks to our pal
an a hostner. Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed the
track you're probably hearing right now. whool anybody else? I
(30:47):
guess we could do Jonathan Strickland at the end, not
to mention Jonathan Strickland, the Quister, h a k a
Jonathan noodleman Um. Hopefully we'll see you real soon and
we'll definitely see you next time. For more podcasts from
(31:09):
my heart radio, visit the I heart radio APP, apple
podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous history is a production of I heart radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always,
so much for tuning in. Shout out to our returning
super producer, Mr Max Williams, recently back from some adventures
in the far west. WHO's that sneaking in the phones
(00:49):
black back? You just, you just make that song up?
Or is that a reference to something? It's it's my
sound cue. Is it really? Yeah, what is that right
now like? Is this something that I should have noticed
(01:14):
prior to to just now? Or you're you're okay? Well, Jeez,
I feel like a real hell, real heal. Um. We're
not talking about wrestling, though today. It would have been
a great segue if we were, because the heel is
like the bad guy in wrestling. It's also that part
of your foot that you're supposed to walk on. Was
Heel to toe, right, so hell first, but we're talking
(01:34):
about something else today. Uh, we're talking about noodles, or
is that like to refer to them cheekily? Eat nudes,
but not those kind of nudes, not the ones that
you send or don't send. Never send unsolicited for the
love of God, just don't do it. I'd like to
give a special shout out to every other fellow pseudo
(01:54):
prepper or prepper light in the audience today. Ridiculous his
story and shout out if you as well, have a
secret stash of instant noodles. They have taken over my pantry,
kind of like, uh, a dried version of Kad zoo
in a nifty package with a variety of ingredients. Yeah,
(02:17):
Japan has given the world so many cool inventions. I
first learned about this story years ago when I was
writing a neat little kids series called stuff of genius,
which is an animated show about various inventors. We've been
going through an inventor phase here on ridiculous history. Uh,
(02:38):
this is this is who we are. We we love inventors.
We love inventors. We are I wanted to note that
this is not a case of an inventor who died
at the hands of their own invention, but this is, yeah,
one heck of a story, uh, and it's probably one
of my favorite inventors stories, because noodles are so ubiquitous.
(03:04):
Right Ramen, you probably think of it here in the
US as Ramen, but there are so many brands. There's
Cup of noodle. There's all sorts of stuff, and today
we're going to explore the story of how these came
to be and why Momofuku and Oh deserves all the accolades. Uh,
you know, that's that's why there are those restaurants named
(03:26):
after him. He's that big of a deal. You know,
those are those are fancy, fancy restaurants. Only there's like
a bunch of them. I've only been to I went
to one that I think isn't there anymore. It's called
some bar with the momofuku noodle bar is still, I think,
a pretty, pretty hot ticket. David Chang. Yeah, and he
also has a you know, a line of products you
can get, including very fancy instant noodles and this line
(03:50):
of Chili Crisps, which I highly recommend. You can get
like these. There's like a like a truff Ali one
chili crunch rather, a super spicy one and a regular one,
and I got all three in their absolutly fantastic and
we are not sponsored by Momofuku, but you know, we're
certainly down. I think we both like to cook and
like a little spice. Obviously both like needles. Ben I
want to posit something. We talked about adventures who were
(04:11):
killed by their own inventions and mentioned that. Of course,
Mafukuando was not one of those tragic cases, but can
you imagine if he was? Wouldn't that be the stuff
of comic books? And he accidentally like deep fried himself
into a cube of noodles and an ended out in
the package going out with the rest of the products. Stuff.
There's an e c Uh there there are several stories
from EC comics that have things very close to what
(04:34):
you're describing sort of way. They're already grizzly comic book
versions of that reality. And of course I'm talked about
stuff like tales from the crypt vault of terror and
so on. But UH, if we're talking ramen and nut
body horror are our story actually traces all the way
(04:54):
back to four hundred C e. This is when the
first Chinese immigrants that we know about arrived in Japan
and over the centuries, as you know, uh, mainland China
and Japan didn't always get along, to put it very,
(05:17):
very lightly and very high level, but there was a
lot of cultural exchange going back and forth between these
two communities because of their proximity and Chinese immigrants introduced
or popularized many things in Japanese culture, either directly or indirectly.
We're talking about stuff like the art of papermaking, Buddhism and,
(05:41):
of course, new kinds of food, especially the weak noodle.
A lot of this is coming from a wonderful little
mental floss article by Michelle Deb Zac called a brief
history of Ramen. You don't know, if people I saw
the very first Chinese noodles that were served in Japan
(06:02):
back then, they wouldn't think of them as Modern Day ramen. Instead,
these things were called Sina Soba. Yeah, and Sina is Um,
a sort of antiquated Japanese word, Um referring to China
and UH, which kind of makes sense, I guess. Um
(06:22):
Phonetically speaking, Sina China, and Soba as a term, as
you should describe any noodle, and we know that today,
although Soba, it kind of does tend to refer to
a specific thickness of noodle. But I get a little
kind of that confused but overwhelmed when it comes to
all the different types of noodle. And I think you
know Soba noodles can come in various thickness. They really
(06:44):
are just kind of like like referred to as hand
pulled type noodles. There's a really great restaurant there was,
I don't know if it's around anymore in Atlanta, called SOBA,
but yeah, it was a term that at the time,
um in ancient Japan, was a staple food and was
used to refer to all those different types of doodles,
specifically kind made with buck wheat. Yeah, yeah, and look,
(07:06):
I'm a yes all noodles kind of guy. I have
always I've always tried to find the ramen shop in town.
It's up there with Casadas for me and that's, you know,
that's real personal statement there and burying my soul. So
there are when we asked about how this modern stuff
comes about, the one that is widely accepted now again,
(07:30):
this is not dried noodles yet, just modern ramen. The
one that's widely accepted starts in the early twentieth century
in Tokyo at a noodle shop called Rye Rye Kent.
(07:50):
This was a Chinese outfit. The cooks were Chinese and
they popularized Ramen by serving that here. Will describe it.
I'm gonna describe it like I'm doing a weird commercial
Max fresh and pooled wheat noodles in a salty drop
(08:13):
top with roasted poor fish cake, and no buy one,
get one free. No, they didn't do that, but these
ingredients are still considered classic toppings today. You'll find almost
any Roman place you visit. This coincides with Japan becoming
increasingly industrialized, which means now there's a growing urban workforce
(08:36):
and they need something that is quick to eat, that
is inexpensive and that is filling right and it it's
just bonus points if it's also really tasty. So Raman
checks all the boxes. And noodles, these kinds of handful
dudles that we're talking about, are still versatile. You can have,
you know, a kind of dryer stir fry with some
(08:58):
meat like you describe. You can have something that's in
a broth, which I guess typically would be more of
what you would refer to as a ramen or a
noodle soup. Um, but they're just great. You can have
a chilled you ever had chilled noodles? They're they're very
big in Korea, I believe. Yeah, I am also eat
the chilled noodles. It makes a lot of sense when
you're in an area where there's a hot, humid summer.
(09:21):
Um I'm usually gonna go hot noodles before but in
my in my Doomsday Pantry, I have right now like
uh ten pack of the little cold noodle kits, and
I know the kids are not the same as making
it from scratch, but if you're ever in a Korean
or Japanese restaurant that has cold noodles on the menu,
(09:45):
give them a try and you're gonna be surprised, promise.
World War Two brings a new ascendency to ramen. Amid
all the horrors and atrocities of this time period, there
were a lot of food shortages. A lot of people
(10:06):
had food insecurity, meaning they weren't sure where their next
meal would be coming from. Street food vendors were outlawed
by the allied occupation and this was a move to
conserve rations, and this was actually continuation of a move
that had started during the war. So people overwhelmingly just
(10:29):
bought ramen from food stalls. Right until foodstalls are outlawed,
the only two ways left to get it are to
make it at home or to find it on the
black market. And this is the thing people might not know. Yeah,
there was a black market of illegal food vendors. They
were pretty common in Japan. Well, and remember too, I
(10:50):
mean we're we're at a time where, yeah, there was
food instability, but also a lot of the stuff wasn't
shelf stable. So, you know, to your point about Doomsday
prepping or even just meal prepping or just trying to,
you know, store up for the winter, it's very difficult
to do because, as we know, if you you hand
pull these noodles, you have to have fresh ingredients, you
(11:12):
have to have the know how and you have to
have the facility to do it in and you kind
of got to eat them right away, unless you drive
them out, which again wasn't really it wasn't really something
quite cracked yet. Yeah, yeah, it's uh, I call it
it's I call it French fry rules. Right. French fries
are not great unless they're fresh, uh, and they can
be tricky to reheat them, wealth though it is possible
(11:35):
if you eat some rabid right, just like fun, and
then you put it in the fridge and take it
out later and attempt to reheat it with all the
ingredients mixed together, it's just not gonna it's gonna hit different.
It's not going to be the same, and this is
something people are, of course aware of. Uh. In even
(11:55):
the dire times of World War Two, also, these gold
food vendors played a very important part in society because
government rations wouldn't come on time. They could be weeks late.
There was also decreased agricultural production, as during any conflict. Right,
see what's happening in Ukraine right now. Uh. And there
(12:19):
might be simple human mismanagement of resources. I did not
know this, uh, until doing some earlier research, but thousands
and thousands of street food vendors were arrested for selling
ramen after the war, and they were working for the Akuza. Yeah,
(12:42):
that really does add a whole other layer to it,
doesn't that, when you think about it, Um Yakuza being,
of course, the infamous Um Organization in Japan responsible for
organized crime, or as this is. This is a true story, folks,
about going to get two into the details, but one
time I was in Japan and accidentally hung out with
(13:04):
the owner of a Karaoke bar, or a bar that
had karaoke, uh, and we hung out until dawn, like
until seven am something. When he wanted to go to
another place. He owned and uh, I'm pretty sure that
he was. He was Yuh Kusa. He said he worked
in construction and sanitation and had a few interest in
(13:27):
real estate. Nicest Guy. But the the Kuza is don't
think of it the same way you would think of
like the stereotypical mob. They're also really active in UM
in helping locals after disasters historically. So it makes sense that,
and you know, I'm not saying they're good guys, I'm
just saying it makes sense that they would play a
(13:50):
role in these black markets because they're seen as helping
the locals, but they're making no mistake, they're also making
money off of this endeavor. Right. It's not entirely charity, uh,
and that's why it's organized crime and not a nonprofit organization. This,
this is maybe where we introduce the man of the hour. No,
(14:12):
Mr Momo Fuku. And Oh, what do we know about him? Yeah,
we do know a bit. Uh. He was born in Taiwan,
which has always been kind of a tumultuous region in
terms of geopolitics and in terms of governance. At the
time it was occupied by Japan, and then he moved
in nineteen thirty three to Osaka. Um. Obviously Japan was very,
(14:37):
very chaotic and torn apart by war. He was seeing
some of the kinds of things you were describing, ben
in terms of people buying noodles from stalls in in
these literal black markets. You know, these were markets where
people were illegally selling things without the you know, permission,
I guess, with the government. Um. The noodles the time
(14:58):
were made from wheat flour. The was being donated by
the US in order to keep civilians from starving. But
instead of making bread, which is what you know, the
U S would have, I guess, intended this to be
used for uh, the Japanese were using it to make noodles.
Bread wasn't really, it isn't really much of a of
a common thing. Yeah, it's it's not. It's not as common.
(15:21):
You'll you'll see it around, you know, in Sandos, in
Uh convenience stores or convenience stores. But but yeah, it
makes sense. You would take maybe this less common ingredients
and you would make something that felt more common to
your experience. We have to really paint the scene with
what and I saw here and again that stuff of
(15:44):
genius piece I mentioned. It was tough because that's an
animated short it's spent largely for children, so we had
to skip over some of the really terrible things that
and I was experiencing. He's walking through Osaka. Like you said,
it's the day after the Japanese surrender to the allied
(16:04):
forces and Osaka did escape the horrors of atomic bombs,
but that didn't mean that it escaped everything. It had
been bombed to. Heck him back, uh, you know, office buildings,
factories are destroyed and Ando is thinking what am I
(16:25):
gonna do? I have to find some kind of job,
and that's where he comes across what what you depicted earlier.
And there's a group of people who are in some rubble,
standing by some rubble behind a train station and they're
lined up outside this guy's improvised Ram install and he
says what is going on? People are willing to go
(16:48):
through this much pain and inconvenience and suffering for a
simple bowl of ramen? And then he said I get
it now. Noodle Soup is comfort food and people are
turning to Ramen for comfort. And he thinks what's worse
(17:09):
is that hunger is the biggest issue today. He even
had a quote where he later said, peace will come
to the world when all its people have enough to eat.
And so his new mission becomes, and he's not a
cook at this point, by the way, his new mission
becomes figuring out how Japan can feed its entire post
war population. Yeah, and and he's he's he's thinking about
(17:33):
this less like a cook and more like an innovator,
or he's looking at it as a problem to solve.
He knows that the Ramen, the noodle soup, is a
comfort and is nourishing, uh, and also again, that it
is a kind of a taste of home. It is
something that makes people feel a little bit of warmth and,
you know, Um, security in the face of all of
(17:54):
this hor horrific adversity. Um. So he comes up with
kind of a list of things that that need to
be accomplished by his whatever, I guess, invention he's trying
to come up with sort of like a next level
shelf stable version of Robin. So, first and foremost, it
has to taste good, uh, and then secondly, in importance,
probably first honestly, is that it has to be non perishable,
(18:19):
has to be be able to be prepared quickly. He
specifically dialed in less than three minutes, presumably because there's
no time to waste. Right. I mean I guess it
really was a calculation of you know, maybe you don't
have more than three minutes because you might be in
a in a dangerous situation. Uh. Needs to be affordable and,
of course, needs to be safe to eat and relatively healthy.
(18:42):
We'll get that part of it a little later, right, right, right. Uh. Well,
what is safe and healthy? Right? At this point he's
probably thinking something that won't give you food poisoning, something
that won't make you sick, uh, and will deliver calories.
You know, two people who need energy. And he says, look,
(19:02):
I also want people to be able to eat these
at home so they don't have to go out in
possibly dangerous areas, right, and wait like those poor folks
by the rubble of the train station. So he builds
a laboratory shed in his backyard and you can see
a you can see reproduction of this at the Cup
(19:24):
Noodles Museum in Japan. It's cool. I love Japanese Museum. So,
of course, like any other inventor, he doesn't have U
he doesn't have immediate success. Right. He has the lightbulb
moment in his head. But then you get to the
the sweaty part, the practical application of the dream. Uh.
(19:44):
It is not until when he he hits on the
thing that will really change the game for for his
invention and therefore for the world. He's looking at his wife, Missoko,
and she is frying to her up and he goes, Huh,
the oil takes the moisture out of what she's cooking.
(20:06):
And then he says, hang on, fried dried noodles can
be remoisturized if you boil them in water. And he's
sort of yes, and in himself, like any like any
good improvisation game, he's going yes, and seasoning powder or
dehydrated toppings. Why not dehydrate everything? We could add those,
(20:27):
we can make so many flavors. And he says, I'M
gonna go with chicken as as my first flavor in
this new age of noodle. Why? White Chicken? That seems yeah,
apparently he thought it was kind of had this American vibe,
which is an interesting choice for for sure. I mean,
(20:50):
not only was he concerned with the American market, I
think he was just concerned with, uh, food restrictions from
various religions Um, he he. He had a feeling that
this would not only, you know, hit big in Japan
and be a very functional thing, but across the world,
and so he wanted to make sure there were no,
you know, religious food or dietary restrictions they would prevent
(21:11):
people from eating these. Um, you know, Hindus can't eat
beef and Muslims can't eat pork. But to his knowledge,
and I believe to my knowledge as well, there aren't
any religions that prohibit the consumption of chicken. And even
though you know there's I don't think it chicken has
(21:33):
ever even been waved over this thing. It's more of
just the perception of it. You know, this is a
powdered uh seasoning blend that I maybe can contained in
the original days some some sort of chicken assaults. But yeah,
it's chicken flavor the way. Lookuas you know, lemon flavored. Uh. Look,
I've always described as h you're drinking it and then
(21:54):
someone down the hall, in another room whispers the name
of the flavor and you go, I guess so, but anyway,
this is so, this is big right, and he has
a lot of foresight. I love the point about religious taboos.
And yes, of course there are. There are, uh, multiple
(22:15):
belief systems that forbid the consumption of animal flesh in general.
But he's not thinking about that. It's just like what's
the least objectionable thing, and so he lands on chicken
and he wants to make this successiful to everyone. But
it might surprise a lot of us would have been
ramen fans by necessity at some point in our lives.
(22:37):
Being very diplomatic there ramen when it first came out,
instant ramen was considered kind of a fancy thing. It
was a little bit of a splurge to get it.
It wasn't like you would see it today, where you're thinking,
I have a dollar fifty, how many of these packs
can I get? Sort of reminds me of like how
microwaves are first perceived when they came out, versus how
(22:59):
they were perceived it over time. You know, initially they
were like the wave of the future, literally though, the
micro wave of the future, and like they were all
these like, you know, cookbooks for making things in the microwave,
and then it kind of just became this like okay,
the microwave is the last ditch effort to to make something,
you know, instant or reheat a leftovers and like that.
Really is no microwave cooking per se Um. But yeah,
(23:21):
it was the same deal and it was also quite expensive.
It was because, because it was kind of a radical
idea to to do what he was doing. No one
else quite uh crack that code yet. So it was
around thirty five yen, or a buck eighty five um
when you adjust for inflation. And this also comes from
(23:41):
that fabulous mental philos article a brief history of Ramen
by Michelle dead cast and so this was really pricey,
around six times in fact, more expensive than standard noodles.
And so now and has to go into the world
of marketing and he thinks I have to sell that.
(24:03):
I need hearts and minds right converted to the Church
of instant ramen. And so he says, I'M gonna have
tasting events, I'm gonna take it directly to the public,
and this is very successful. Chicken Ramen, C H I
K I n catches on and it it blows every
(24:25):
other competitor out of the water. It's one of the
most ubiquitous foods in post war Japan. The fact that
it is so convenient to make for a lot of people.
That makes up for the cost. Prices eventually went down.
It's an economy of scale, and I think this was
also very smart of Momofuku, because he could have just
(24:47):
kept selling it at the same price point and then,
as economy of scale kicked in and it costs him
less to produce each unit, he could have pocketed the profits,
but he didn't. He stuck by his guns because he
wanted this to be a wordable. So that's that. I
think speaks highly to his character. And we had some
math here, also for mental floss, with the help of
(25:10):
our friends over at fast company, a Lisa Friedman, writing
the surprising origin story of the ICONIC Cup noodles. Here's
what here's what they did with the math. They said. Now,
if you look at it, and we're pulling these from numbers,
an average pack of ramen costs like a quarter. So
if you ate it three times a day, every day
(25:33):
for a year, you would only be spending two and
seventy five bucks for food. Of course, also, as we'll find,
you should not eat ramen three times a day for
an entire year. Just don't. Unfortunately, it's not Christmas if
it's every day right now. Yeah, it's got a whole
lot of sodium in it. I think around Uh UH
(25:53):
nearly two thousand milligrams of sodium and and every you know,
one of those Uh delectable fried wears of top ramen. Yeah, yeah,
around this time we see diversification of ramen. Different parts
of the country start having their own styles of Ramen,
(26:13):
like Tong Katsu, which is one of my favorites, which
comes from Fuko Yoka. Obviously we're not native Japanese speakers. Folks,
uh this this region is at the center of Japan's
pork industry, so it makes sense that they would make
Tom Katsu, which is again just h delicious. There was
this place in our old office called Tonton and they
(26:36):
had no right to be as good as they were.
You get the really solid and Robin. Certainly, you know,
had a big, big cop in the last you know,
ten years or so kind of you know becoming first
probably in places like New York and L A, kind
of becoming a little more chic Um, you know, outside
of just like the traditional kind of foodstall type situation
that there's maybe family run, maybe you know been around
(26:58):
longer generationally, but then kind of they're. There are these
more bespoke kind of ramen places like Tonton Um and,
you know, of course, like Mamafuku, that are all jumping
off of that tradition but then adding their own kind
of take to it. And then really the broth is
the magic. Like, if you it takes time. You know,
(27:19):
it takes time, effort and know how to really do
it right. I mean I think a traditional Dunkatsu broth
has to be boiled for over a day, sometimes even longer. Um,
there's actually a documentary about ramen that I saw on
a plane recently. I have to look it up and
see if I can find out what the name was.
But Um, you know, when you boil these pig bones,
(27:42):
you're essentially breaking down the marrow and the fat and
all of the good stuff inside the bone to create
this kind of cloudy, you know, Mommy rich broth that
really is kind of the base of the flavor of
the whole thing. And then usually, I think, a piece
of pork belly. M Yeah, I like a like an
(28:03):
egg in there as well. That's cool. Eggs that are
sort of marinated a little bit like there's like a
hard but a soft boiled eggs almost a brownish quality
because they marinate them in mirroring and so I yeah.
And then also there's UH Miso ramen. That would be
an example of Tara, the seasoning that you ladle into
the bottom of the Ramen bowl. I believe Misso ramen
(28:26):
comes from chefs in northern Hakkaido. Uh. They're the first
ones to add miso to Ramen as a as a
way of fortifying one against the cold winters, and those
winters are cold. I have a friend who actually grew
up in a very far northern area of Japan and
(28:53):
one time her contact lens case froze. Yeah, it that
cold Max and so she said she was just going.
She just went and decided she would take the morning off.
So it makes sense. So we see similar innovations across
the world in cold climates. But back to and Oh
(29:17):
he's not done yet. Well, hold up, hold up, we
I think off Mike. Folks, we have both been getting
so into instant noodles right now that no, I think
we're gonna have to take a noodle break. You want
to do you want to break and go eat some noodles? Yeah,
just briefly, and then we'll come back with UH, part
(29:38):
two of of the story of instant noodles. I think
are I think we got a little carried away with
our noodle exuberance and this one ended up being a
little longer than we expected. But all good stuff, Um,
and so look forward to part two coming at you
next time. I love noodle exuberance. Noodle Zuberants, what a
great phrase. I love the term exuberant and general that's
(30:01):
why we exuberantly. Thank UH super producer, Mr Max Williams,
returning from his time abroad. Thanks, of course, also to
guest super producer Tory Harrison, who pinch hit, pinched hit,
pinch hitted for us. Uh. She also creates ridiculous news.
Checked that show out. Who Else? Who Else? Who Else? Oh,
(30:24):
Christopher Rociota is here in spirit, of course, also a
big fan of noodles. I was just in his town
about a week ago and he turned me onto a
fantastic robin shop. He's a good dude. He's a good dude.
Thanks also to Eve's Jeff coat, thanks to our pal
an a hostner. Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed the
track you're probably hearing right now. whool anybody else? I
(30:47):
guess we could do Jonathan Strickland at the end, not
to mention Jonathan Strickland, the Quister, h a k a
Jonathan noodleman Um. Hopefully we'll see you real soon and
we'll definitely see you next time. For more podcasts from
(31:09):
my heart radio, visit the I heart radio APP, apple
podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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