![\"Statue](\"http:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/files\/2023\/04\/435px-The_statue_of_Momofuku_Ando.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOne of the most synonymous products to emerge from Japan other then the Walkman of course, has to be Ramen. More specifically, the packaged instant variety that is enjoyed across the globe. From late night study sessions to double shifts at work instant ramen has been an affordable and easy to prepare last minute meal for millions if not billions of people globally. I personally don\u2019t have a direct connection to Japan or to ramens history, but I have a deep passionate enjoyment and love for the salty dried little noodle packets. The history of this salty prepackaged delight is almost as interesting as the variety of flavours the food comes in. In the period that instant ramen was invented and popularized Japan was still recovering from the devastation of the Second World War. They were a nation adrift questioning much of their culture and their history and receiving massive imports of grain from the US, so they needed to develop new food ways. This is where the non-instant variety of Ramen really gained popularity in Japan and as the country\u2019s economy began to recover and the hustle and bustle or a reviving economy took over from the devastation and survival people needed a quick and easy meal alternative. Enter the hero of our story, Instant Ramen.<\/p>\n
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Japan has a long history with both noodles and soup. Noodles reached the isles shores from their neighbour China sometime in the Heian Period (around 800AD) but did not gain widespread popularity until the technological revolutions of the 1800\u2019s.1<\/sup> Early Portuguese travellers wrote Instant ramen first hit Japan\u2019s post war market in 1958. It was invented by a formerly bankrupt ex convict named Ando Momofuko(depicted in the Statue on the left). Ando had been arrested twice in recent years once by the Japanese government during the war and once by the American occupying forces. One thing the stood out to Ando between the two experiences was the quality of food. The Japanese prison had him eating barely palatable gruel while in the American prison the food was plentiful and the guards and prisoners all ate the same things.2<\/sup> After this revelatory food experience as well as his and wider Japan\u2019s experiences of hunger and poverty Ando with next to no money to his name decided that the people of Japan needed a change, so in the tiny shed behind the house he was living in, Ando set to work.3<\/sup><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ando set out with the encouragement and some initial financial backing from local government officials to find a use for Americas surplus grain. In an attempt to prevent the westernization of Japan\u2019s food culture through bread, Ando instead looked east to Asia\u2019s long traditions with noodles.4 <\/sup>He emerged from his shed in 1958 with his new product Chikin Ramen( his original product is shown in the picture), In the late 1960\u2019s Ando travelled to America to advertise his hit product and discovered the drastic differences in how Americans and the Japanese consume food. The lack of chopsticks as well as the lack of deep Japanese style soup bowls in America meant that ramen needed to evolve for this new market.8 <\/sup>The idea for this evolution came to Ando on his flight home to Japan. He was eating nuts out of a can with a resealable plastic lid when he shouted out in joy as he had what he claims was a literal Eureka moment. (or at least the Japanese equivalent)9 <\/sup>When he returned to his home, he once again set out to revolutionize the food industry and this time he emerged with another hit. The synonymous Styrofoam cup noodles is what Ando came up with and they idea is more complex than it appears on the surface. The cup has to serve as both a delivery and packaging system as well as a serving bowls that can retain the heat of the boiling water without burning the hand of the consumer holding it. On top of that the noodles must be suspended within the cup in such as way as to not settle at the bottom which will lead to them shaking around in the shipping process breaking the noodles.10 <\/sup>With this change in format the noodles which are an amalgamation of Japanese, Chinese, and American culture and history that would come to be a defining part of Japanese cuisine around the world were now ready to conquer the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the most synonymous products to emerge from Japan other then the Walkman of course, has to be Ramen. More specifically, the packaged instant variety that is enjoyed across the globe. From late night study sessions to double shifts at work instant ramen has been an affordable and easy to prepare last minute meal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":316,"featured_media":342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-published"],"splot_meta":{"author":"Cameron Peacock","license":"by","footer":"Bibliography Kushner, Barak, Slurp! a Social and Culinary History of Ramen - Japan's Favorite Noodle Soup. Leiden: Brill, 2012. https:\/\/ebookcentral.proquest.com\/lib\/kwantlen-ebooks\/detail.action?docID=1023578\u00a0 Wikipedia, [photo] The statue of Momofuku Ando. Wikimedia Commons, March 30, 2019. https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:The_statue_of_Momofuku_Ando.jpg Wikipedia, [photo] Cupnoodles Museum. Wikimedia Commons, November 20, 2018. https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Cupnoodles_Museum_(45073602755).jpg Wikipedia, [photo] Construction of Cup Noodles. Wikimedia Commons, March 30, 2019. https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Construction_of_CUP_NOODLE.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"First](\"http:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/foodhistory\/files\/2023\/04\/First-Ramen.jpg\")
it was a near instant hit.5 <\/sup>Ando\u2019s humble invention of some dried noodles packaged with a soup flavour packet sparked a food revolution in Japan. As the country had begun to recover from the war its economic culture was beginning to change, urban areas were becoming denser, students and workers were travelling far from home for opportunities, as well as working long hours and so they began to develop a culture of living in apartments near their school or workplace.6 <\/sup>These bachelors and workers ate mountains of Ando\u2019s ramen and as Japan\u2019s economy continued to recover and grow and new previously unavailable luxuries such as eating out became affordable once more ramen\u2019s popularity both in the instant and traditional variety continued to grow as well.7<\/sup><\/p>\n![\"Cup](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/1\/13\/Construction_of_CUP_NOODLE.jpg\/447px-Construction_of_CUP_NOODLE.jpg?20190726145141\")
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