September 22, 2022 • 33 mins
As Momofuku Ando's instant noodles take Japan by storm, he sets his sights on the global horizon. In part two of this two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max explore the expansion of instant noodles into the United States, the rest of the planet -- and, eventually, space.
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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. This is part two of
a two part series, because we just love instant noodles
that much. No offense super producer, Max Williams. I'm gonna
say you and noodles are in in my top ten,
(00:47):
but I can't say where you each are because we
work together. Okay, uh, sure and sweet let's get right
into it. It's noodle time. It's fast forward. It's the
mid nineteen sixties. Japanese sales of Chicken Ramen and uh
a couple of spinoff products you made, I have started
(01:10):
to decline because the market is saturated. There are so
many dried noodles out, so many variations of ramen that
are regionally specific. It's kind of like podcasting, but more delicious. Yeah,
podcasting could be delicious. Check out our sister podcast saver,
(01:30):
for one of the most delicious podcasts of them all.
You know, we've got to remember too, that much earlier
than this, when the decline of Ramen was starting to
take place, on top ramen Um, we were already seeing
sort of Americanized Chinese cuisine. You know, we thought we
did a whole episode on like the China, the Chop
Suey houses uh, in California, and then that moved, you know,
(01:53):
into New York and all of that stuff. And this
was like in the early nineteen hundreds. So we already
know there is a craving or at least like sort
of an inherent awareness and and, uh, understanding. And again,
a lot of this is very Americanized and sort of
served two Americans, you know, on their terms, uh, in
order for some of these, you know, immigrant families to
(02:13):
survive and to establish, you know, businesses. But I think
and o must have known that to a degree. But
the side of the US was ready for his products.
Mm Hmmm, yeah, he said, why not? I know the game. Again,
quite a brilliant, insightful guy. So he takes lessons from
things like Suki Yaki, which is beef and vegetables cooked
(02:38):
in a hot pot. U S audiences love this because
they feel like it seems new, interesting and exotic, but
it does so while still kind of conforming two what
you would call the American Palette, right. Uh. So, like
you said, he travels to the US and sixties six
(02:58):
to promote chicken ramen and he says, holy smokes, these
guys are bananas. Look at them. They're breaking up the
packs of my noodles in the pieces and they're put
them in cups and pouring, just pouring the boiling water
over it. Why? Why aren't they do what? Why didn't
(03:18):
I think of this? Uh? And he he realizes that
this isn't a spin on his invention out of necessity,
because you need bowls and chopsticks to cook instant Raman
the way it's originally designed, and that's pretty much everywhere
in a Japanese home or in a work kitchen, but
(03:41):
not so much in western nations. There you would be,
especially in the sixties. You're much less likely to just
have bowls and chopsticks laying around so you can consume
your ramen after you cook it in the pot. So
now Um Momafuku is onto his next big breakthrough, which,
(04:01):
you know, was inspired by this kind of seat of
the pants American way of consuming, you know, this product
that was meant to be prepared a completely different way.
So he decided he was going to make the packaging
part of the the experience, you know, essentially and and
so in nineteen seventy one cup noodle was born. His company,
(04:23):
by the way, was called Nissan Instant Cook I don't
think we mentioned that. Yeah, yeah, founded on September onet nineteen. Uh,
kind of around the same time. He had been convicted
of tax evasion, but we'll skip over that part. You know,
geniuses can't be expected to operate like the rest of us,
(04:45):
although they are by the government anyhow. So Cup noodles,
big deal. We all know about this. The packaging is
like much the same. Um, nineteen seventy one, it actually
initially used a paper package but Um, they decided to
use poly style Marene because it was, I guess, cheaper
and again, probably they didn't really know better at the time. Uh, now,
(05:07):
certainly that's become less uh palatable, for lack of a
better term. Um, there's tons of cup noodles out there
and I think most of them are paper because obviously
polystyrene is bad news for the environment because it just,
you know, doesn't want to biodegrade. Yeah, yeah, and that's
the experience I have whenever I see Styrofoam or polystyrene.
(05:29):
It's just it's weird. You're reading out of a cup
of noodles and you look at the packaging and you
think this thing is gonna be here thousands and thousands
of years after and gone, you know, and the taste
of the broth will only be a memory. But yes,
they you're right, and that's the studental. We do see
this transition away from foam eventually. But in the heyday
(05:55):
of Styrofoam, polystyrene and other materials, uh this Cup noodle
becomes ubiquitous. And there's there's another funny story about this invention.
So you know, you got the little packet with the
freeze dried veggies and stuff. Right, little noodle have it
pre mixed, though it depends on which one you get.
(06:17):
I think the Official Cup neodle has a pre mix,
so it looks like more of a full mill. But again,
I eat. I have a lot of noodles in this pantry.
It's it's fucking crazy. If you go to uh an
Asian market, you know, if you if you're lucky enough
to have a really good one in your town, I
mean the dried noodle section is a cave of wonders.
(06:38):
There's so, so many. We have a couple here, one
called Um UH super h smart that's fantastic. And then
also the Buford highway farmers market, one of my exactly.
I've actually not been to that one, but pregot a
farmer's market is a an absolute embarrassment of riches when
it comes to doodles. And one thing I will say,
and we'll get to that here too, Japanese marketing is
(07:00):
so good. My kid even points out like, man, I
just want to buy this. I don't even know what
it is. I don't want to buy it because of
the little cartoon character on the packet. And they're just
so much better at making arresting image rich, you know,
character kind of driven products, and that's no exception with
the first design of the Cup noodle. Gotta Catch Him, uh.
(07:24):
I always catch all the noodles UF. Yeah, one thing, Um,
it really stood out to me in my travels in Japan.
It was the the regional mascots that so many towns
have that are associated with specific festivals and stuff. They're
doing it right, uh. And also talking about that with
the guy who was not officially Yakuza. That was pretty
(07:48):
interesting too. I'll have to save that story for Babe.
A live show, Um, I don't remember. Talked about Max
we'll think, you know, Um, but maybe we save it.
I don't want to pull focus here from Momo Fucuando,
because he's doing such cool stuff. Uh. Funny thing about
the design of the Cup of noodle, the Cup noodle,
I should say, is that there's a cool moment in
(08:11):
his story. has another epiphany. He's on a Trans Pacific flight.
Now we don't know whether or not this flight landed
in Hawaii, you know, to refuel or something, and then
completed a second leg to Japan or whether it was
a straight shot, but at some point he got some
(08:33):
macadamia nuts on the plane and he peeled back the
lid and he said, Oh yeah, I should just I
should do that for the cup of noodles. And then, uh,
that's why, you know, whenever you you make them, you
put the water in and then you try to at
least put the lid sort of loosely back on, you know. Uh. So, yeah, right, right,
(08:58):
the steam M okay. So let's talk about this logo.
There's a little bit of psychology evolved here, because because
they want to promote cup noodle as a premium thing, right,
(09:21):
that's right, and and it was. I mean it had
that pullback lid that you describe, which was kind of
a bespoke feature, mentioning, you know, the branding and the
marketing for all these kinds of things. They went nuts.
He hired this master marketer named Otaka Takeishi, who had
designed the logo for the Osaka Nineteen Seventy World Fair.
He wanted to design the Cup to appear really like
(09:42):
trendy and and cutting edge and to also appeal specifically
to an American audience. So he had the text in
this really cool verse sixties kind of inspired, almost psychedelic
Font Um, and then the Japanese text was a good
bit smaller, and then it had these insignias that were
these kind of gold bands that were meant to evoke
images that the Japanese folks at least would understand, relating
(10:06):
to finery, you know, fine dining, expensive dinner plates and such.
The Cup included just about the same amount of material,
you know, of actual noodles and and uh and spice
as the packets, but was four times more expensive. Therefore,
you know, if you want to make something seem luxurious,
(10:29):
just charge more money for it. Um, but you know, yeah,
but again, it was you were paying for the convenience
you were paying for the innovation. It was almost like
there was a bit of a gimmick to it. Oh yeah, yeah,
again dipping dots. I'm still mystified by that. But I'm
a sucker for him, you know. I'm a sucker for
packaging and novelty and and stuff that seems cool and special,
(10:53):
and this is a common human characteristic. Ando knows this.
That's why, to get back to the hasting events, what
he decides to do with Cup noodle is teach people
how to eat it, and he wants to target people
in the coolest part of town. So perhaps most famously,
(11:14):
November one nine, he's in the Tokyo gains shopping district
and he tries to find the young, hip up and
comers strolling a street called pedestrian paradise and you know,
let me sell this to you, because you're cool. Here's
the cool noodle and here's how to eat it. In
(11:37):
four hours they sell more than twenty thousand units of
Cup noodle. And then he also pitches this through his
company Nisson. Also pitches it to people who are on
the move. Right it's so convenient. It's like what they
would call a walking Taco right, you got the Little
Cup and you can you can just walk, you can
(11:59):
even maybe slurp it a little noisily like soup, and
you don't have to sit down right like you would
at a restaurant. And then they get a weird pr boost,
the kind of the kind of event one cannot predict.
There is a hostage crisis that occurs called the Asama
(12:20):
Sanso incident, and during this incident the media shows police
officers who are eating cup noodle to stay warm. This
is not paid product placement. They're just saying, you know,
look at the authorities who happened to like cup noodle.
Sales explode. You can't buy that kind of publicity. That's right.
(12:44):
This is also kind of coinciding with advancements in retail experiences,
because in Japan you had convenience stores kind of starting
to open in nineteen sixty nine Um, which became a
really portant place to be able to buy crup noodles.
In fact, it also went on to be one of
(13:05):
the very first products sold in vending machines in Japan
around nineteen seventy one, and we know that. You know,
Japan is a country it gets kind of borderline obsessed
with vending machines. You can get just about anything that
you could think of in vending machines and this was
one of the very first products. Because I've always kind
of thought of postwar Japan as having this fascination with
(13:26):
kind of Futurism, Um, in terms of technology, in terms
of being able to kind of rebuild themselves from the
ground up as sort of a society of the future, Um,
which is interesting because it obviously also has so many
echoes of the past, you know, such an old civilization
and culture, but yet so many things, especially in like
the you know, cultural kind of Mecca like Tokyo, are
just mega, Mega, you know, kind of futurized. Yeah, agreed.
(13:51):
Just to give you a sense, the convenience stores in
Japan these days are streets ahead of the US and honestly,
streets out of Europe. You know what I might have
to say it. They might be the world's best convenience stores. Honestly,
no Ding on Bucky's, but if there is a bucky's
(14:12):
convenience store in Japan, it may be the best convenience
store in the world. You can get your mail done,
you can get insurance, a lot of the stores have
little stamps for each store. If you like to collect stamps,
you buy all kinds of food. It's amazing and there
and they never close. Uh. So Cup noodle makes sense
(14:32):
for this. And Yeah, also the UH the toilets are
from the future, as is the vending machine culture. The
Cup Noodle Museum, which we mentioned briefly, is still around
and you can see the history of this ingenious invention.
You can also make your own personalized cup noodle, which,
(14:55):
I know this is Lamy, guys, but that's part of
the recent I want to visit because all the popular,
all the popular members of the Global Cultural Pantheon in
Japan have their own cup noodle by this point. You know, Yoda,
San Brio, Hello Kitty, all of them, of course. Course. Yeah.
So I feel like a ridiculous history. Cup Noodle is
(15:18):
is the next move for us. Oh Man, wouldn't that
be fun? That's a great idea, but I mean, you know,
so you've got those established characters that have all these like,
you know, intellectual property kind of partnerships with like different brands,
but then you also have these brands that kind of
create their own characters, sort of like you know, I
guess the closest equivalent we might have is like sereal
mascots that that aren't even, like, nearly as prominent as
(15:39):
they used to be, but you know they're like the
lucky charms, lepricaan or whatever, the pills, very doughboy. Sure,
like the toucan Sam and all of that stuff, but
we don't lean into that stuff nearly as much as
as as Japanese marketers do. So I think Um and
that's one reason why it's so fun to walk through those,
Uh those Raman Isles at the at the the Asian markets,
(15:59):
just to see all of the different packaging and branding.
And chances are there are very little differences between the
flavor of some of them. They're all gonna be pretty generic.
And then, of course they're you know, they're ones that
you would be your go to, you find to be
your favorites, but it's sort of like shopping for craft
beer or wine. Sometimes you pick the one that has
the coolest label. Yeah, and there are, you know, there
(16:21):
are people who are gonna say no, Dot, I am
only a top ramen person or I am only a
chap getty person. I try them all personally. I I'm
a sucker for kids. You know, I like feeling like
I've I've bought a process, the whole thing like. I
like the ones that are almost like barrels. They're the
(16:45):
really big cup of noodle things that come with a
resyllable plastic lid. They've got oil in addition to a
soup base and dried veggies or whatever, and then some
of them also have this really cool little fold out spork.
Have you guys seen these things? They're they're on like
a hinge. If you haven't, I've got I've got some
and I need to push these. I'm pushing the noodles. Guys.
(17:07):
I need more room in my Pantry, so I'm going
to bring you some of these. You don't have to Tryumph,
but it's fun to have him. It's fun to have him.
Just in case that sounds awesome, Ben you'll tell you
what my favorite is. Uh Still. Um is a company
called Nong Shim. Uh makes a line of ramen noodles
you can get in a cup or in a packet
(17:28):
called Shin Black Uh, and it's pretty spicy. Um really
has that bone broadly. There's like a powder that comes
with it's like white and it really does add that
kind of creamy ou mommy kind of vibe. I wanted
to ask you, though, but I just know this. This
the name of this product, or I guess the company
is called Nong Shim and the Ramen is called Shin.
(17:49):
And if I remember correctly, I don't know that we
even went into this, but in the earliest days when
Raman was associated with China, and I believe the word
was she na Um, but it was. It was sort
of phased out because it's considered offensive. Um. It was
considered like a pejorative Um. Again, it was described in
(18:10):
the mental flaws article as an archaic Japanese word for
China and then it was paired with Soba. So I
wonder if this is do you think this Shin in,
the Raman that I like is in some way a
call back to that? Or is it is it something
completely different? Yeah, Nang Shim is South Korean. So it
was founded in sixty five. It was created by a
(18:33):
guy named Shin Chun Ho, who whose brother founded. His brother,
Shin Kilco, founded the Latte Corporation, and Latte is like
that's interesting, Choe Corporation. So I wonder if this is
like his his signature recipe or something like that, because
it's the Shin Black, you know, line of Raman. You
(18:53):
get the one that comes in the plastic bowl too.
If you tried that one. I have had that one
before and it's funny too. In in Korea, obviously ramen
is it's also huge problem, but it's spelled a little different.
It spelled with a why. It's spelled like Ram Yon
r a m y you in Um. And then there's,
you know, lots of different Korean spins on it as well. Uh,
there's so many. Come with me and you'll be in
(19:18):
a world of something that rhymes with noodles. Uh. So,
I gotta Tell You, I'm not gonna lie. I hope
I have something in the cabinet. I know you're sitting
on a wealth that I'm very jealous, but I'm really
craving some ramen now after this, in this episode. Yeah,
and I gotta again. I'm pushing. I'm pushing the RAMEN.
I gotta Make Room for my other other survival foods.
(19:38):
I have so much. I'm gonna you know what, I'm
gonna send you guys a picture after we record, and
I think this might end up being a two party,
because we're both very excited about ramen. And this story
is not done. You might be hearing this and say, Hey,
I thought it was Cup oh noodles. Why are you got?
Why do you guys keep saying cup noodles? Well, that's
(20:00):
because the name Cup oh noodles was phased out. Originally
it was just meant as a pitch to American audiences,
you know, in Canada and the US and uh later Mexico,
his the US three. It's renamed cup noodles in nineteen
(20:22):
three and just you know what, one thing that bugs
me about cup noodles in the US, just like kick cats,
there are fewer flavors. Japanese culture runs the Kit cat game.
It is. If you go to you know that some
of these markets that we're talking about you can you
can sample a lot of them, but they're really expensive.
They're quite expensive because of this shipping, you know. Uh,
(20:46):
and this is why are our good friends a savor
are Japanese kit cat rich. Every time I hang out
with our Pals Lauren and Annie, they're trying to push
kick cats on me of all ends of weird flavors.
Some are just like some are just like clearly the
result of synaesthesia or translation. Like well, have you ever
(21:10):
had an ocean dream Kit Kat? Because I have had.
I don't know what it tastes like. It's got a
little salt to it. I like the I think I
had a Wasabi one when ye yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
those are good. And then and they don't then also,
like I mean the Japanese. They don't mess around when
it comes to flavor. You know, there's no like, oh,
(21:32):
we're gonna, we're gonna dumb this down. You know, there's
no we're gonna soften this for like a less, you know,
Daring Palette. I mean if you you can rest assured
that if something says spicy, it's probably gonna Knock you
on your butt. Yeah, agreed. And now you can see
that cup noodle, still made by Nisan, is global, is ubiquitous.
(21:56):
It's made in eighty countries and territories and, just like McDonald's,
you'll see local variant flavors. You're in India, you can
eat missala flavored cup noodle. You're in Germany mushroom flavor.
Those are just two examples. Let us know your favorite.
Oh Gosh, this is gonna be like doing that live
(22:17):
show in philly where at the end I asked what
the best cheese steak place was. That was the dumbest
thing to ask people in Philadelphia. We're I anticipate we're
gonna hear a lot of stories about the ramen and noodles.
So it turns out our Guy Ando, you, you could
(22:38):
comfortably say that is his company, has revolutionized food, whether
you call it snack food or just convenience food. He's
revolutionized it around the world. But he doesn't stop at
the at the borders of Earth. Oh boy. Okay, is
(22:59):
this about like sending noodles into space? Ben, it is,
it is. UH, he he made space noodles. Okay, oh well, yeah,
I mean we love freeze dried things in space. Yeah, because, uh,
(23:20):
like the astronaut ice cream is again about like shelf
stability and uh yeah, I just I can't imagine how
you would boil water. It would have to be some
sort of very self contained thing. or You'd have like
weird globs of of boiling water shooting at you all
ball in zero g's, right, yeah, that's why. So this
(23:41):
is he called it space ram or space Roblem, short
for Romen. This was made especially for a Japanese astronaut,
Soichi NOGUCCI. UH, in the discovery flight in two thousand five.
It's edible as zero gravity. And the differences, remember we
said the broth is a big deal, right, the same
is true in space. The broth is a pairly thick
enough to not sort of drift away like a liquid
(24:04):
wood in zero gravity, and because it has smaller noodles,
you can cook it without boiling water, averting a space disaster.
That that you you also predicted right, channeling Momofuku Ando here,
and this guy dedicates his life to this. As a
matter of fact, the day before he passes away he
(24:27):
is in the Nissan factory in Osaka because he gives
an annual speech every New Year's even after he retired
in two thousand five. He didn't fall from the rail
into the boiling that and turn himself into a cup
of noodle. Did he been? No, no, he established that,
but I had to bring it back up. No, no,
(24:48):
he did. He didn't go. He see comics with it. UH,
he had. He didn't. Really interesting and it's a book
I want to read. So every year there's a true story, folks.
Every year he would go to uh this factory and
he would, as they put it in in Gizmoto, he
(25:10):
would articulate his thoughts on Ramen and eventually ramen became
the basis for this deep inspiring philosophy about the nature
of life. And at his funeral someone made a book
of his collected speeches and all the people at the
(25:30):
funeral got one. And when we say all, we're talking
about quite a few people. Six thousand, five hundred people
are at Ando's funeral and he has a quote like,
just to give us a sense of how philosophical this became.
One of his quotes was the fundamental misunderstanding of humanity
(25:52):
is believing we can achieve all our desires without limitation.
Cup Noodle. He didn't say cup noodle at the end.
That was just me adding that I feel. I feel
like that would actually be a bad advertisement for cup noodle.
Oh No, doubt. Um, and I'll tell you. Back to
David Chang, UM, celebrity chef, podcaster, TV presenter, Pretty Ubiquitous Guy. Um,
(26:15):
he apparently actually did not name his line after Momo
Fuku himself. Momo means peach in Japanese and Fuku means lucky.
Uh definitely a connection there because he also has his hat.
Used to have a delivery only restaurant called Ando Um.
So He's obviously very much aware of of the guy
(26:36):
and what Chang has done, of course, is, you know,
elevated that that fifty Cent Cup of noodle to something
that he can reasonably charge. Respectably charged fourteen dollars for
he uses in this interview and NPR. He says we
use Berkshire Pork from Iowa, local Greens, Seasonal Greens that change,
bamboo shoots and Nori. But he also acknowledges that the
(26:58):
you know, regular old cup noodles or the you know,
the innovation that Hodo himself came up with, still nothing
quite like it. There's something too that uh, you know,
two thousand milligrams of sodium. Uh Maybe, uh, I don't know,
adds a little open to it. Who knows? It's good stuff, though,
(27:18):
whether you have the bespoke kind or the more Um,
you know, fast food version. And if you are lucky
enough to live by a food stall where you get
fresh Ramen, then obviously Momofuku Ando is not not upset
with you, he's not cross with you. I'm bringing back cross.
I'm saying people are being crossed. Let's see if it works.
(27:39):
Uh He in fact hoo himself says, Hey, you know,
it's not exactly fresh ramen taste wise maybe it's not
as good. It's its own unique thing. But I also
want to feed people. I want to sustain human life
through the most difficult of times, like I encountered in
(28:01):
the aftermath of World War Two. so by that metric
he's profoundly successful. As of two thousand and eight, global
consumption of instant ramen was ninety four billion packages per year,
which is an average of fourteen bulls per person. And
I think that's part of what Momo Fuco Ando was
(28:22):
talking about when he said things like mankind is noodle kind. Here, here,
and just to add, you know, one last thing. I mean,
obviously Momofuku himself passed away, Um, not terribly, terribly long ago.
He was ninety six years old. He passed away in,
I believe, two thousand seven, from when that NPR piece
(28:44):
that I was quoting David Chang from came out. That
was actually a remembrance of him. Um, when when he passed,
and then in two thousand and seven, Um. But you know,
we know one of the important legacies that he brought
to the world of Ramen was that flair for advertising
and for aativity and kind of innovation. and Um, if
anyone has a little bit of time to kill going
(29:05):
down some Internet rabbit hole, there's a fantastic tradition in
Japan of hiring American celebrities to kind of Shill for
their products. Um, there's a really great website called Japander
dot com that organizes a lot of these like in
alphabetical order, and you can find ones from Arnold Schwarzenegger
kind of pitching this like energy drink, to Nicholas cage
(29:27):
shilling from his Pachinko brand. And actually, James Brown was
hired to sing a song about Miso Flavored Cup noodles
to the tune of one of his most popular songs,
get on up Um, in a an ad that aired
in nineteen nine two. It's true, and you can see
those advertisements in Japan today. I do want to know
(29:52):
it is currently kind of difficult to visit Japan unless
you are a spouse of a national, your Japanese national
and yourself, or you go with its work group. But
do go when you get a chance to experience and
tell tell us, at least tell me if you get
the Cup Noodle Museum. I'm so excited to visit there
(30:15):
one day. We have some other stuff we didn't get to,
which is the things like the secret to springy noodles.
There's some very compelling science behind it. But, as you
can hear, the leaf blower guy found out we were recording.
So that's our que, that's our time. We hope you,
leafblower man. I know, I know, it's like just if
(30:40):
you want to be on the show, just send us
an email. We love guest leaflower man, but uh, with
that in mind, and no shade, no shade to the
leaf blower man. Uh. We hope you enjoyed this two
part series on the history of instant noodles. Check out
stuff of genius as well. Let us know your faith
(31:00):
favors of varieties of noodles. I don't know if this
says too much about our backgrounds here, but I'm pretty
sure that all three of us have our own spin
on like what you do, like how you spice up
your Robin. I like the little sesame oil in there,
just a touch. You know, it's amazing. Uh. So we
want to hear your your recipe ideas. We also want
(31:23):
to give a big, big thanks to Mr Max Williams.
Max Max, I almost didn't think you're gonna come back
from vacation. Man, was it? Was it tough to return?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean I was drinking before the
recording that. I think I'm on mountain time now. I
have progressed from Pacific to mountain. Yeah, I mean, I
(31:43):
didn't want to come back, but you know, I just
couldn't stand being away from me all any longer. Sweet,
we missed you too, buddy. Yeah, and UH. We also
want to thank our guest producer, try Harrison of ridiculous neoze,
who jumped in. Uh, and thanks, of course, to Alex Williams,
(32:04):
who composed this track. Thanks to MOMOFOCO and O for sure. Gosh,
we've got some new noodles. After this, I'm going up
to the to the kitchen and just ransacking the pantry.
There must be at least one UH errant pack of
of of noodles in there. Yeah, Nol same here. I'M
gonna go over to Ben's house and start ranch sacking
(32:25):
his pantry and I'm gonna I'm gonna send you that
picture guys, that's where I'm going. I'm gonna send you.
It's egregious how many noodles I have. I don't want
to overhype it, but it's a lot. It's a lot,
uh and no, thank you in advance for taking some
of these, some of these noodles, off my hands. It's funny,
I just realized all three of us, and perhaps Youtube
(32:46):
listening at home. All three of us just sort of
consider instant noodles a staple product at a kitchen. Right,
we're all just assuming there's some. They're right. I mean,
like I said, if there's not, I'm gonna be very upset.
But I have no doubt that least one has kind
of fallen in the cracks and I am going to
find it. Mind you. But Ben Please bring me all
of your of your of your noodles that need a home.
(33:09):
Consider me your noodle repository. I will send you nudes.
There we go. We'll see you next time. Folks, for
more podcasts for 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. This is part two of
a two part series, because we just love instant noodles
that much. No offense super producer, Max Williams. I'm gonna
say you and noodles are in in my top ten,
(00:47):
but I can't say where you each are because we
work together. Okay, uh, sure and sweet let's get right
into it. It's noodle time. It's fast forward. It's the
mid nineteen sixties. Japanese sales of Chicken Ramen and uh
a couple of spinoff products you made, I have started
(01:10):
to decline because the market is saturated. There are so
many dried noodles out, so many variations of ramen that
are regionally specific. It's kind of like podcasting, but more delicious. Yeah,
podcasting could be delicious. Check out our sister podcast saver,
(01:30):
for one of the most delicious podcasts of them all.
You know, we've got to remember too, that much earlier
than this, when the decline of Ramen was starting to
take place, on top ramen Um, we were already seeing
sort of Americanized Chinese cuisine. You know, we thought we
did a whole episode on like the China, the Chop
Suey houses uh, in California, and then that moved, you know,
(01:53):
into New York and all of that stuff. And this
was like in the early nineteen hundreds. So we already
know there is a craving or at least like sort
of an inherent awareness and and, uh, understanding. And again,
a lot of this is very Americanized and sort of
served two Americans, you know, on their terms, uh, in
order for some of these, you know, immigrant families to
(02:13):
survive and to establish, you know, businesses. But I think
and o must have known that to a degree. But
the side of the US was ready for his products.
Mm Hmmm, yeah, he said, why not? I know the game. Again,
quite a brilliant, insightful guy. So he takes lessons from
things like Suki Yaki, which is beef and vegetables cooked
(02:38):
in a hot pot. U S audiences love this because
they feel like it seems new, interesting and exotic, but
it does so while still kind of conforming two what
you would call the American Palette, right. Uh. So, like
you said, he travels to the US and sixties six
(02:58):
to promote chicken ramen and he says, holy smokes, these
guys are bananas. Look at them. They're breaking up the
packs of my noodles in the pieces and they're put
them in cups and pouring, just pouring the boiling water
over it. Why? Why aren't they do what? Why didn't
(03:18):
I think of this? Uh? And he he realizes that
this isn't a spin on his invention out of necessity,
because you need bowls and chopsticks to cook instant Raman
the way it's originally designed, and that's pretty much everywhere
in a Japanese home or in a work kitchen, but
(03:41):
not so much in western nations. There you would be,
especially in the sixties. You're much less likely to just
have bowls and chopsticks laying around so you can consume
your ramen after you cook it in the pot. So
now Um Momafuku is onto his next big breakthrough, which,
(04:01):
you know, was inspired by this kind of seat of
the pants American way of consuming, you know, this product
that was meant to be prepared a completely different way.
So he decided he was going to make the packaging
part of the the experience, you know, essentially and and
so in nineteen seventy one cup noodle was born. His company,
(04:23):
by the way, was called Nissan Instant Cook I don't
think we mentioned that. Yeah, yeah, founded on September onet nineteen. Uh,
kind of around the same time. He had been convicted
of tax evasion, but we'll skip over that part. You know,
geniuses can't be expected to operate like the rest of us,
(04:45):
although they are by the government anyhow. So Cup noodles,
big deal. We all know about this. The packaging is
like much the same. Um, nineteen seventy one, it actually
initially used a paper package but Um, they decided to
use poly style Marene because it was, I guess, cheaper
and again, probably they didn't really know better at the time. Uh, now,
(05:07):
certainly that's become less uh palatable, for lack of a
better term. Um, there's tons of cup noodles out there
and I think most of them are paper because obviously
polystyrene is bad news for the environment because it just,
you know, doesn't want to biodegrade. Yeah, yeah, and that's
the experience I have whenever I see Styrofoam or polystyrene.
(05:29):
It's just it's weird. You're reading out of a cup
of noodles and you look at the packaging and you
think this thing is gonna be here thousands and thousands
of years after and gone, you know, and the taste
of the broth will only be a memory. But yes,
they you're right, and that's the studental. We do see
this transition away from foam eventually. But in the heyday
(05:55):
of Styrofoam, polystyrene and other materials, uh this Cup noodle
becomes ubiquitous. And there's there's another funny story about this invention.
So you know, you got the little packet with the
freeze dried veggies and stuff. Right, little noodle have it
pre mixed, though it depends on which one you get.
(06:17):
I think the Official Cup neodle has a pre mix,
so it looks like more of a full mill. But again,
I eat. I have a lot of noodles in this pantry.
It's it's fucking crazy. If you go to uh an
Asian market, you know, if you if you're lucky enough
to have a really good one in your town, I
mean the dried noodle section is a cave of wonders.
(06:38):
There's so, so many. We have a couple here, one
called Um UH super h smart that's fantastic. And then
also the Buford highway farmers market, one of my exactly.
I've actually not been to that one, but pregot a
farmer's market is a an absolute embarrassment of riches when
it comes to doodles. And one thing I will say,
and we'll get to that here too, Japanese marketing is
(07:00):
so good. My kid even points out like, man, I
just want to buy this. I don't even know what
it is. I don't want to buy it because of
the little cartoon character on the packet. And they're just
so much better at making arresting image rich, you know,
character kind of driven products, and that's no exception with
the first design of the Cup noodle. Gotta Catch Him, uh.
(07:24):
I always catch all the noodles UF. Yeah, one thing, Um,
it really stood out to me in my travels in Japan.
It was the the regional mascots that so many towns
have that are associated with specific festivals and stuff. They're
doing it right, uh. And also talking about that with
the guy who was not officially Yakuza. That was pretty
(07:48):
interesting too. I'll have to save that story for Babe.
A live show, Um, I don't remember. Talked about Max
we'll think, you know, Um, but maybe we save it.
I don't want to pull focus here from Momo Fucuando,
because he's doing such cool stuff. Uh. Funny thing about
the design of the Cup of noodle, the Cup noodle,
I should say, is that there's a cool moment in
(08:11):
his story. has another epiphany. He's on a Trans Pacific flight.
Now we don't know whether or not this flight landed
in Hawaii, you know, to refuel or something, and then
completed a second leg to Japan or whether it was
a straight shot, but at some point he got some
(08:33):
macadamia nuts on the plane and he peeled back the
lid and he said, Oh yeah, I should just I
should do that for the cup of noodles. And then, uh,
that's why, you know, whenever you you make them, you
put the water in and then you try to at
least put the lid sort of loosely back on, you know. Uh. So, yeah, right, right,
(08:58):
the steam M okay. So let's talk about this logo.
There's a little bit of psychology evolved here, because because
they want to promote cup noodle as a premium thing, right,
(09:21):
that's right, and and it was. I mean it had
that pullback lid that you describe, which was kind of
a bespoke feature, mentioning, you know, the branding and the
marketing for all these kinds of things. They went nuts.
He hired this master marketer named Otaka Takeishi, who had
designed the logo for the Osaka Nineteen Seventy World Fair.
He wanted to design the Cup to appear really like
(09:42):
trendy and and cutting edge and to also appeal specifically
to an American audience. So he had the text in
this really cool verse sixties kind of inspired, almost psychedelic
Font Um, and then the Japanese text was a good
bit smaller, and then it had these insignias that were
these kind of gold bands that were meant to evoke
images that the Japanese folks at least would understand, relating
(10:06):
to finery, you know, fine dining, expensive dinner plates and such.
The Cup included just about the same amount of material,
you know, of actual noodles and and uh and spice
as the packets, but was four times more expensive. Therefore,
you know, if you want to make something seem luxurious,
(10:29):
just charge more money for it. Um, but you know, yeah,
but again, it was you were paying for the convenience
you were paying for the innovation. It was almost like
there was a bit of a gimmick to it. Oh yeah, yeah,
again dipping dots. I'm still mystified by that. But I'm
a sucker for him, you know. I'm a sucker for
packaging and novelty and and stuff that seems cool and special,
(10:53):
and this is a common human characteristic. Ando knows this.
That's why, to get back to the hasting events, what
he decides to do with Cup noodle is teach people
how to eat it, and he wants to target people
in the coolest part of town. So perhaps most famously,
(11:14):
November one nine, he's in the Tokyo gains shopping district
and he tries to find the young, hip up and
comers strolling a street called pedestrian paradise and you know,
let me sell this to you, because you're cool. Here's
the cool noodle and here's how to eat it. In
(11:37):
four hours they sell more than twenty thousand units of
Cup noodle. And then he also pitches this through his
company Nisson. Also pitches it to people who are on
the move. Right it's so convenient. It's like what they
would call a walking Taco right, you got the Little
Cup and you can you can just walk, you can
(11:59):
even maybe slurp it a little noisily like soup, and
you don't have to sit down right like you would
at a restaurant. And then they get a weird pr boost,
the kind of the kind of event one cannot predict.
There is a hostage crisis that occurs called the Asama
(12:20):
Sanso incident, and during this incident the media shows police
officers who are eating cup noodle to stay warm. This
is not paid product placement. They're just saying, you know,
look at the authorities who happened to like cup noodle.
Sales explode. You can't buy that kind of publicity. That's right.
(12:44):
This is also kind of coinciding with advancements in retail experiences,
because in Japan you had convenience stores kind of starting
to open in nineteen sixty nine Um, which became a
really portant place to be able to buy crup noodles.
In fact, it also went on to be one of
(13:05):
the very first products sold in vending machines in Japan
around nineteen seventy one, and we know that. You know,
Japan is a country it gets kind of borderline obsessed
with vending machines. You can get just about anything that
you could think of in vending machines and this was
one of the very first products. Because I've always kind
of thought of postwar Japan as having this fascination with
(13:26):
kind of Futurism, Um, in terms of technology, in terms
of being able to kind of rebuild themselves from the
ground up as sort of a society of the future, Um,
which is interesting because it obviously also has so many
echoes of the past, you know, such an old civilization
and culture, but yet so many things, especially in like
the you know, cultural kind of Mecca like Tokyo, are
just mega, Mega, you know, kind of futurized. Yeah, agreed.
(13:51):
Just to give you a sense, the convenience stores in
Japan these days are streets ahead of the US and honestly,
streets out of Europe. You know what I might have
to say it. They might be the world's best convenience stores. Honestly,
no Ding on Bucky's, but if there is a bucky's
(14:12):
convenience store in Japan, it may be the best convenience
store in the world. You can get your mail done,
you can get insurance, a lot of the stores have
little stamps for each store. If you like to collect stamps,
you buy all kinds of food. It's amazing and there
and they never close. Uh. So Cup noodle makes sense
(14:32):
for this. And Yeah, also the UH the toilets are
from the future, as is the vending machine culture. The
Cup Noodle Museum, which we mentioned briefly, is still around
and you can see the history of this ingenious invention.
You can also make your own personalized cup noodle, which,
(14:55):
I know this is Lamy, guys, but that's part of
the recent I want to visit because all the popular,
all the popular members of the Global Cultural Pantheon in
Japan have their own cup noodle by this point. You know, Yoda,
San Brio, Hello Kitty, all of them, of course. Course. Yeah.
So I feel like a ridiculous history. Cup Noodle is
(15:18):
is the next move for us. Oh Man, wouldn't that
be fun? That's a great idea, but I mean, you know,
so you've got those established characters that have all these like,
you know, intellectual property kind of partnerships with like different brands,
but then you also have these brands that kind of
create their own characters, sort of like you know, I
guess the closest equivalent we might have is like sereal
mascots that that aren't even, like, nearly as prominent as
(15:39):
they used to be, but you know they're like the
lucky charms, lepricaan or whatever, the pills, very doughboy. Sure,
like the toucan Sam and all of that stuff, but
we don't lean into that stuff nearly as much as
as as Japanese marketers do. So I think Um and
that's one reason why it's so fun to walk through those,
Uh those Raman Isles at the at the the Asian markets,
(15:59):
just to see all of the different packaging and branding.
And chances are there are very little differences between the
flavor of some of them. They're all gonna be pretty generic.
And then, of course they're you know, they're ones that
you would be your go to, you find to be
your favorites, but it's sort of like shopping for craft
beer or wine. Sometimes you pick the one that has
the coolest label. Yeah, and there are, you know, there
(16:21):
are people who are gonna say no, Dot, I am
only a top ramen person or I am only a
chap getty person. I try them all personally. I I'm
a sucker for kids. You know, I like feeling like
I've I've bought a process, the whole thing like. I
like the ones that are almost like barrels. They're the
(16:45):
really big cup of noodle things that come with a
resyllable plastic lid. They've got oil in addition to a
soup base and dried veggies or whatever, and then some
of them also have this really cool little fold out spork.
Have you guys seen these things? They're they're on like
a hinge. If you haven't, I've got I've got some
and I need to push these. I'm pushing the noodles. Guys.
(17:07):
I need more room in my Pantry, so I'm going
to bring you some of these. You don't have to Tryumph,
but it's fun to have him. It's fun to have him.
Just in case that sounds awesome, Ben you'll tell you
what my favorite is. Uh Still. Um is a company
called Nong Shim. Uh makes a line of ramen noodles
you can get in a cup or in a packet
(17:28):
called Shin Black Uh, and it's pretty spicy. Um really
has that bone broadly. There's like a powder that comes
with it's like white and it really does add that
kind of creamy ou mommy kind of vibe. I wanted
to ask you, though, but I just know this. This
the name of this product, or I guess the company
is called Nong Shim and the Ramen is called Shin.
(17:49):
And if I remember correctly, I don't know that we
even went into this, but in the earliest days when
Raman was associated with China, and I believe the word
was she na Um, but it was. It was sort
of phased out because it's considered offensive. Um. It was
considered like a pejorative Um. Again, it was described in
(18:10):
the mental flaws article as an archaic Japanese word for
China and then it was paired with Soba. So I
wonder if this is do you think this Shin in,
the Raman that I like is in some way a
call back to that? Or is it is it something
completely different? Yeah, Nang Shim is South Korean. So it
was founded in sixty five. It was created by a
(18:33):
guy named Shin Chun Ho, who whose brother founded. His brother,
Shin Kilco, founded the Latte Corporation, and Latte is like
that's interesting, Choe Corporation. So I wonder if this is
like his his signature recipe or something like that, because
it's the Shin Black, you know, line of Raman. You
(18:53):
get the one that comes in the plastic bowl too.
If you tried that one. I have had that one
before and it's funny too. In in Korea, obviously ramen
is it's also huge problem, but it's spelled a little different.
It spelled with a why. It's spelled like Ram Yon
r a m y you in Um. And then there's,
you know, lots of different Korean spins on it as well. Uh,
there's so many. Come with me and you'll be in
(19:18):
a world of something that rhymes with noodles. Uh. So,
I gotta Tell You, I'm not gonna lie. I hope
I have something in the cabinet. I know you're sitting
on a wealth that I'm very jealous, but I'm really
craving some ramen now after this, in this episode. Yeah,
and I gotta again. I'm pushing. I'm pushing the RAMEN.
I gotta Make Room for my other other survival foods.
(19:38):
I have so much. I'm gonna you know what, I'm
gonna send you guys a picture after we record, and
I think this might end up being a two party,
because we're both very excited about ramen. And this story
is not done. You might be hearing this and say, Hey,
I thought it was Cup oh noodles. Why are you got?
Why do you guys keep saying cup noodles? Well, that's
(20:00):
because the name Cup oh noodles was phased out. Originally
it was just meant as a pitch to American audiences,
you know, in Canada and the US and uh later Mexico,
his the US three. It's renamed cup noodles in nineteen
(20:22):
three and just you know what, one thing that bugs
me about cup noodles in the US, just like kick cats,
there are fewer flavors. Japanese culture runs the Kit cat game.
It is. If you go to you know that some
of these markets that we're talking about you can you
can sample a lot of them, but they're really expensive.
They're quite expensive because of this shipping, you know. Uh,
(20:46):
and this is why are our good friends a savor
are Japanese kit cat rich. Every time I hang out
with our Pals Lauren and Annie, they're trying to push
kick cats on me of all ends of weird flavors.
Some are just like some are just like clearly the
result of synaesthesia or translation. Like well, have you ever
(21:10):
had an ocean dream Kit Kat? Because I have had.
I don't know what it tastes like. It's got a
little salt to it. I like the I think I
had a Wasabi one when ye yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
those are good. And then and they don't then also,
like I mean the Japanese. They don't mess around when
it comes to flavor. You know, there's no like, oh,
(21:32):
we're gonna, we're gonna dumb this down. You know, there's
no we're gonna soften this for like a less, you know,
Daring Palette. I mean if you you can rest assured
that if something says spicy, it's probably gonna Knock you
on your butt. Yeah, agreed. And now you can see
that cup noodle, still made by Nisan, is global, is ubiquitous.
(21:56):
It's made in eighty countries and territories and, just like McDonald's,
you'll see local variant flavors. You're in India, you can
eat missala flavored cup noodle. You're in Germany mushroom flavor.
Those are just two examples. Let us know your favorite.
Oh Gosh, this is gonna be like doing that live
(22:17):
show in philly where at the end I asked what
the best cheese steak place was. That was the dumbest
thing to ask people in Philadelphia. We're I anticipate we're
gonna hear a lot of stories about the ramen and noodles.
So it turns out our Guy Ando, you, you could
(22:38):
comfortably say that is his company, has revolutionized food, whether
you call it snack food or just convenience food. He's
revolutionized it around the world. But he doesn't stop at
the at the borders of Earth. Oh boy. Okay, is
(22:59):
this about like sending noodles into space? Ben, it is,
it is. UH, he he made space noodles. Okay, oh well, yeah,
I mean we love freeze dried things in space. Yeah, because, uh,
(23:20):
like the astronaut ice cream is again about like shelf
stability and uh yeah, I just I can't imagine how
you would boil water. It would have to be some
sort of very self contained thing. or You'd have like
weird globs of of boiling water shooting at you all
ball in zero g's, right, yeah, that's why. So this
(23:41):
is he called it space ram or space Roblem, short
for Romen. This was made especially for a Japanese astronaut,
Soichi NOGUCCI. UH, in the discovery flight in two thousand five.
It's edible as zero gravity. And the differences, remember we
said the broth is a big deal, right, the same
is true in space. The broth is a pairly thick
enough to not sort of drift away like a liquid
(24:04):
wood in zero gravity, and because it has smaller noodles,
you can cook it without boiling water, averting a space disaster.
That that you you also predicted right, channeling Momofuku Ando here,
and this guy dedicates his life to this. As a
matter of fact, the day before he passes away he
(24:27):
is in the Nissan factory in Osaka because he gives
an annual speech every New Year's even after he retired
in two thousand five. He didn't fall from the rail
into the boiling that and turn himself into a cup
of noodle. Did he been? No, no, he established that,
but I had to bring it back up. No, no,
(24:48):
he did. He didn't go. He see comics with it. UH,
he had. He didn't. Really interesting and it's a book
I want to read. So every year there's a true story, folks.
Every year he would go to uh this factory and
he would, as they put it in in Gizmoto, he
(25:10):
would articulate his thoughts on Ramen and eventually ramen became
the basis for this deep inspiring philosophy about the nature
of life. And at his funeral someone made a book
of his collected speeches and all the people at the
(25:30):
funeral got one. And when we say all, we're talking
about quite a few people. Six thousand, five hundred people
are at Ando's funeral and he has a quote like,
just to give us a sense of how philosophical this became.
One of his quotes was the fundamental misunderstanding of humanity
(25:52):
is believing we can achieve all our desires without limitation.
Cup Noodle. He didn't say cup noodle at the end.
That was just me adding that I feel. I feel
like that would actually be a bad advertisement for cup noodle.
Oh No, doubt. Um, and I'll tell you. Back to
David Chang, UM, celebrity chef, podcaster, TV presenter, Pretty Ubiquitous Guy. Um,
(26:15):
he apparently actually did not name his line after Momo
Fuku himself. Momo means peach in Japanese and Fuku means lucky.
Uh definitely a connection there because he also has his hat.
Used to have a delivery only restaurant called Ando Um.
So He's obviously very much aware of of the guy
(26:36):
and what Chang has done, of course, is, you know,
elevated that that fifty Cent Cup of noodle to something
that he can reasonably charge. Respectably charged fourteen dollars for
he uses in this interview and NPR. He says we
use Berkshire Pork from Iowa, local Greens, Seasonal Greens that change,
bamboo shoots and Nori. But he also acknowledges that the
(26:58):
you know, regular old cup noodles or the you know,
the innovation that Hodo himself came up with, still nothing
quite like it. There's something too that uh, you know,
two thousand milligrams of sodium. Uh Maybe, uh, I don't know,
adds a little open to it. Who knows? It's good stuff, though,
(27:18):
whether you have the bespoke kind or the more Um,
you know, fast food version. And if you are lucky
enough to live by a food stall where you get
fresh Ramen, then obviously Momofuku Ando is not not upset
with you, he's not cross with you. I'm bringing back cross.
I'm saying people are being crossed. Let's see if it works.
(27:39):
Uh He in fact hoo himself says, Hey, you know,
it's not exactly fresh ramen taste wise maybe it's not
as good. It's its own unique thing. But I also
want to feed people. I want to sustain human life
through the most difficult of times, like I encountered in
(28:01):
the aftermath of World War Two. so by that metric
he's profoundly successful. As of two thousand and eight, global
consumption of instant ramen was ninety four billion packages per year,
which is an average of fourteen bulls per person. And
I think that's part of what Momo Fuco Ando was
(28:22):
talking about when he said things like mankind is noodle kind. Here, here,
and just to add, you know, one last thing. I mean,
obviously Momofuku himself passed away, Um, not terribly, terribly long ago.
He was ninety six years old. He passed away in,
I believe, two thousand seven, from when that NPR piece
(28:44):
that I was quoting David Chang from came out. That
was actually a remembrance of him. Um, when when he passed,
and then in two thousand and seven, Um. But you know,
we know one of the important legacies that he brought
to the world of Ramen was that flair for advertising
and for aativity and kind of innovation. and Um, if
anyone has a little bit of time to kill going
(29:05):
down some Internet rabbit hole, there's a fantastic tradition in
Japan of hiring American celebrities to kind of Shill for
their products. Um, there's a really great website called Japander
dot com that organizes a lot of these like in
alphabetical order, and you can find ones from Arnold Schwarzenegger
kind of pitching this like energy drink, to Nicholas cage
(29:27):
shilling from his Pachinko brand. And actually, James Brown was
hired to sing a song about Miso Flavored Cup noodles
to the tune of one of his most popular songs,
get on up Um, in a an ad that aired
in nineteen nine two. It's true, and you can see
those advertisements in Japan today. I do want to know
(29:52):
it is currently kind of difficult to visit Japan unless
you are a spouse of a national, your Japanese national
and yourself, or you go with its work group. But
do go when you get a chance to experience and
tell tell us, at least tell me if you get
the Cup Noodle Museum. I'm so excited to visit there
(30:15):
one day. We have some other stuff we didn't get to,
which is the things like the secret to springy noodles.
There's some very compelling science behind it. But, as you
can hear, the leaf blower guy found out we were recording.
So that's our que, that's our time. We hope you,
leafblower man. I know, I know, it's like just if
(30:40):
you want to be on the show, just send us
an email. We love guest leaflower man, but uh, with
that in mind, and no shade, no shade to the
leaf blower man. Uh. We hope you enjoyed this two
part series on the history of instant noodles. Check out
stuff of genius as well. Let us know your faith
(31:00):
favors of varieties of noodles. I don't know if this
says too much about our backgrounds here, but I'm pretty
sure that all three of us have our own spin
on like what you do, like how you spice up
your Robin. I like the little sesame oil in there,
just a touch. You know, it's amazing. Uh. So we
want to hear your your recipe ideas. We also want
(31:23):
to give a big, big thanks to Mr Max Williams.
Max Max, I almost didn't think you're gonna come back
from vacation. Man, was it? Was it tough to return?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean I was drinking before the
recording that. I think I'm on mountain time now. I
have progressed from Pacific to mountain. Yeah, I mean, I
(31:43):
didn't want to come back, but you know, I just
couldn't stand being away from me all any longer. Sweet,
we missed you too, buddy. Yeah, and UH. We also
want to thank our guest producer, try Harrison of ridiculous neoze,
who jumped in. Uh, and thanks, of course, to Alex Williams,
(32:04):
who composed this track. Thanks to MOMOFOCO and O for sure. Gosh,
we've got some new noodles. After this, I'm going up
to the to the kitchen and just ransacking the pantry.
There must be at least one UH errant pack of
of of noodles in there. Yeah, Nol same here. I'M
gonna go over to Ben's house and start ranch sacking
(32:25):
his pantry and I'm gonna I'm gonna send you that
picture guys, that's where I'm going. I'm gonna send you.
It's egregious how many noodles I have. I don't want
to overhype it, but it's a lot. It's a lot,
uh and no, thank you in advance for taking some
of these, some of these noodles, off my hands. It's funny,
I just realized all three of us, and perhaps Youtube
(32:46):
listening at home. All three of us just sort of
consider instant noodles a staple product at a kitchen. Right,
we're all just assuming there's some. They're right. I mean,
like I said, if there's not, I'm gonna be very upset.
But I have no doubt that least one has kind
of fallen in the cracks and I am going to
find it. Mind you. But Ben Please bring me all
of your of your of your noodles that need a home.
(33:09):
Consider me your noodle repository. I will send you nudes.
There we go. We'll see you next time. Folks, for
more podcasts for my heart radio, visit the I heart
radio APP apple podcast or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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