Latest / Ridiculous History / Instant Noodles Changed The World, Part One: An Origin Story

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Instant Noodles Changed The World, Part One: An Origin Story · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous history is a production of I heart radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show, ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always,
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Shout out to our returning
0:35
Speaker 1: super producer, Mr Max Williams, recently back from some adventures
0:42
Speaker 1: in the far west. WHO's that sneaking in the phones
0:49
Speaker 1: black back? You just, you just make that song up?
0:53
Speaker 1: Or is that a reference to something? It's it's my
0:55
Speaker 1: sound cue. Is it really? Yeah, what is that right
1:07
Speaker 1: now like? Is this something that I should have noticed
1:14
Speaker 1: prior to to just now? Or you're you're okay? Well, Jeez,
1:19
Speaker 1: I feel like a real hell, real heal. Um. We're
1:22
Speaker 1: not talking about wrestling, though today. It would have been
1:24
Speaker 1: a great segue if we were, because the heel is
1:26
Speaker 1: like the bad guy in wrestling. It's also that part
1:29
Speaker 1: of your foot that you're supposed to walk on. Was
1:31
Speaker 1: Heel to toe, right, so hell first, but we're talking
1:34
Speaker 1: about something else today. Uh, we're talking about noodles, or
1:39
Speaker 1: is that like to refer to them cheekily? Eat nudes,
1:41
Speaker 1: but not those kind of nudes, not the ones that
1:43
Speaker 1: you send or don't send. Never send unsolicited for the
1:47
Speaker 1: love of God, just don't do it. I'd like to
1:49
Speaker 1: give a special shout out to every other fellow pseudo
1:54
Speaker 1: prepper or prepper light in the audience today. Ridiculous his
1:59
Speaker 1: story and shout out if you as well, have a
2:02
Speaker 1: secret stash of instant noodles. They have taken over my pantry,
2:08
Speaker 1: kind of like, uh, a dried version of Kad zoo
2:13
Speaker 1: in a nifty package with a variety of ingredients. Yeah,
2:17
Speaker 1: Japan has given the world so many cool inventions. I
2:23
Speaker 1: first learned about this story years ago when I was
2:25
Speaker 1: writing a neat little kids series called stuff of genius,
2:29
Speaker 1: which is an animated show about various inventors. We've been
2:34
Speaker 1: going through an inventor phase here on ridiculous history. Uh,
2:38
Speaker 1: this is this is who we are. We we love inventors.
2:42
Speaker 1: We love inventors. We are I wanted to note that
2:47
Speaker 1: this is not a case of an inventor who died
2:49
Speaker 1: at the hands of their own invention, but this is, yeah,
2:53
Speaker 1: one heck of a story, uh, and it's probably one
2:57
Speaker 1: of my favorite inventors stories, because noodles are so ubiquitous.
3:04
Speaker 1: Right Ramen, you probably think of it here in the
3:07
Speaker 1: US as Ramen, but there are so many brands. There's
3:09
Speaker 1: Cup of noodle. There's all sorts of stuff, and today
3:13
Speaker 1: we're going to explore the story of how these came
3:16
Speaker 1: to be and why Momofuku and Oh deserves all the accolades. Uh,
3:23
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's why there are those restaurants named
3:26
Speaker 1: after him. He's that big of a deal. You know,
3:30
Speaker 1: those are those are fancy, fancy restaurants. Only there's like
3:33
Speaker 1: a bunch of them. I've only been to I went
3:34
Speaker 1: to one that I think isn't there anymore. It's called
3:36
Speaker 1: some bar with the momofuku noodle bar is still, I think,
3:39
Speaker 1: a pretty, pretty hot ticket. David Chang. Yeah, and he
3:43
Speaker 1: also has a you know, a line of products you
3:46
Speaker 1: can get, including very fancy instant noodles and this line
3:50
Speaker 1: of Chili Crisps, which I highly recommend. You can get
3:52
Speaker 1: like these. There's like a like a truff Ali one
3:55
Speaker 1: chili crunch rather, a super spicy one and a regular one,
3:58
Speaker 1: and I got all three in their absolutly fantastic and
4:00
Speaker 1: we are not sponsored by Momofuku, but you know, we're
4:03
Speaker 1: certainly down. I think we both like to cook and
4:06
Speaker 1: like a little spice. Obviously both like needles. Ben I
4:08
Speaker 1: want to posit something. We talked about adventures who were
4:11
Speaker 1: killed by their own inventions and mentioned that. Of course,
4:13
Speaker 1: Mafukuando was not one of those tragic cases, but can
4:16
Speaker 1: you imagine if he was? Wouldn't that be the stuff
4:18
Speaker 1: of comic books? And he accidentally like deep fried himself
4:20
Speaker 1: into a cube of noodles and an ended out in
4:22
Speaker 1: the package going out with the rest of the products. Stuff.
4:26
Speaker 1: There's an e c Uh there there are several stories
4:30
Speaker 1: from EC comics that have things very close to what
4:34
Speaker 1: you're describing sort of way. They're already grizzly comic book
4:39
Speaker 1: versions of that reality. And of course I'm talked about
4:41
Speaker 1: stuff like tales from the crypt vault of terror and
4:44
Speaker 1: so on. But UH, if we're talking ramen and nut
4:48
Speaker 1: body horror are our story actually traces all the way
4:54
Speaker 1: back to four hundred C e. This is when the
5:00
Speaker 1: first Chinese immigrants that we know about arrived in Japan
5:06
Speaker 1: and over the centuries, as you know, uh, mainland China
5:12
Speaker 1: and Japan didn't always get along, to put it very,
5:17
Speaker 1: very lightly and very high level, but there was a
5:20
Speaker 1: lot of cultural exchange going back and forth between these
5:25
Speaker 1: two communities because of their proximity and Chinese immigrants introduced
5:31
Speaker 1: or popularized many things in Japanese culture, either directly or indirectly.
5:36
Speaker 1: We're talking about stuff like the art of papermaking, Buddhism and,
5:41
Speaker 1: of course, new kinds of food, especially the weak noodle.
5:47
Speaker 1: A lot of this is coming from a wonderful little
5:49
Speaker 1: mental floss article by Michelle Deb Zac called a brief
5:53
Speaker 1: history of Ramen. You don't know, if people I saw
5:58
Speaker 1: the very first Chinese noodles that were served in Japan
6:02
Speaker 1: back then, they wouldn't think of them as Modern Day ramen. Instead,
6:08
Speaker 1: these things were called Sina Soba. Yeah, and Sina is Um,
6:13
Speaker 1: a sort of antiquated Japanese word, Um referring to China
6:20
Speaker 1: and UH, which kind of makes sense, I guess. Um
6:22
Speaker 1: Phonetically speaking, Sina China, and Soba as a term, as
6:26
Speaker 1: you should describe any noodle, and we know that today,
6:28
Speaker 1: although Soba, it kind of does tend to refer to
6:31
Speaker 1: a specific thickness of noodle. But I get a little
6:35
Speaker 1: kind of that confused but overwhelmed when it comes to
6:37
Speaker 1: all the different types of noodle. And I think you
6:40
Speaker 1: know Soba noodles can come in various thickness. They really
6:44
Speaker 1: are just kind of like like referred to as hand
6:46
Speaker 1: pulled type noodles. There's a really great restaurant there was,
6:49
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's around anymore in Atlanta, called SOBA,
6:51
Speaker 1: but yeah, it was a term that at the time,
6:54
Speaker 1: um in ancient Japan, was a staple food and was
6:58
Speaker 1: used to refer to all those different types of doodles,
7:01
Speaker 1: specifically kind made with buck wheat. Yeah, yeah, and look,
7:06
Speaker 1: I'm a yes all noodles kind of guy. I have
7:10
Speaker 1: always I've always tried to find the ramen shop in town.
7:15
Speaker 1: It's up there with Casadas for me and that's, you know,
7:18
Speaker 1: that's real personal statement there and burying my soul. So
7:22
Speaker 1: there are when we asked about how this modern stuff
7:25
Speaker 1: comes about, the one that is widely accepted now again,
7:30
Speaker 1: this is not dried noodles yet, just modern ramen. The
7:34
Speaker 1: one that's widely accepted starts in the early twentieth century
7:39
Speaker 1: in Tokyo at a noodle shop called Rye Rye Kent.
7:50
Speaker 1: This was a Chinese outfit. The cooks were Chinese and
7:55
Speaker 1: they popularized Ramen by serving that here. Will describe it.
8:01
Speaker 1: I'm gonna describe it like I'm doing a weird commercial
8:05
Speaker 1: Max fresh and pooled wheat noodles in a salty drop
8:13
Speaker 1: top with roasted poor fish cake, and no buy one,
8:18
Speaker 1: get one free. No, they didn't do that, but these
8:21
Speaker 1: ingredients are still considered classic toppings today. You'll find almost
8:25
Speaker 1: any Roman place you visit. This coincides with Japan becoming
8:30
Speaker 1: increasingly industrialized, which means now there's a growing urban workforce
8:36
Speaker 1: and they need something that is quick to eat, that
8:40
Speaker 1: is inexpensive and that is filling right and it it's
8:44
Speaker 1: just bonus points if it's also really tasty. So Raman
8:48
Speaker 1: checks all the boxes. And noodles, these kinds of handful
8:52
Speaker 1: dudles that we're talking about, are still versatile. You can have,
8:54
Speaker 1: you know, a kind of dryer stir fry with some
8:58
Speaker 1: meat like you describe. You can have something that's in
8:59
Speaker 1: a broth, which I guess typically would be more of
9:02
Speaker 1: what you would refer to as a ramen or a
9:04
Speaker 1: noodle soup. Um, but they're just great. You can have
9:08
Speaker 1: a chilled you ever had chilled noodles? They're they're very
9:10
Speaker 1: big in Korea, I believe. Yeah, I am also eat
9:14
Speaker 1: the chilled noodles. It makes a lot of sense when
9:17
Speaker 1: you're in an area where there's a hot, humid summer.
9:21
Speaker 1: Um I'm usually gonna go hot noodles before but in
9:25
Speaker 1: my in my Doomsday Pantry, I have right now like
9:30
Speaker 1: uh ten pack of the little cold noodle kits, and
9:35
Speaker 1: I know the kids are not the same as making
9:36
Speaker 1: it from scratch, but if you're ever in a Korean
9:40
Speaker 1: or Japanese restaurant that has cold noodles on the menu,
9:45
Speaker 1: give them a try and you're gonna be surprised, promise.
9:49
Speaker 1: World War Two brings a new ascendency to ramen. Amid
9:56
Speaker 1: all the horrors and atrocities of this time period, there
10:02
Speaker 1: were a lot of food shortages. A lot of people
10:06
Speaker 1: had food insecurity, meaning they weren't sure where their next
10:09
Speaker 1: meal would be coming from. Street food vendors were outlawed
10:14
Speaker 1: by the allied occupation and this was a move to
10:19
Speaker 1: conserve rations, and this was actually continuation of a move
10:23
Speaker 1: that had started during the war. So people overwhelmingly just
10:29
Speaker 1: bought ramen from food stalls. Right until foodstalls are outlawed,
10:34
Speaker 1: the only two ways left to get it are to
10:37
Speaker 1: make it at home or to find it on the
10:39
Speaker 1: black market. And this is the thing people might not know. Yeah,
10:43
Speaker 1: there was a black market of illegal food vendors. They
10:47
Speaker 1: were pretty common in Japan. Well, and remember too, I
10:50
Speaker 1: mean we're we're at a time where, yeah, there was
10:54
Speaker 1: food instability, but also a lot of the stuff wasn't
10:57
Speaker 1: shelf stable. So, you know, to your point about Doomsday
11:01
Speaker 1: prepping or even just meal prepping or just trying to,
11:04
Speaker 1: you know, store up for the winter, it's very difficult
11:07
Speaker 1: to do because, as we know, if you you hand
11:09
Speaker 1: pull these noodles, you have to have fresh ingredients, you
11:12
Speaker 1: have to have the know how and you have to
11:13
Speaker 1: have the facility to do it in and you kind
11:16
Speaker 1: of got to eat them right away, unless you drive
11:19
Speaker 1: them out, which again wasn't really it wasn't really something
11:21
Speaker 1: quite cracked yet. Yeah, yeah, it's uh, I call it
11:25
Speaker 1: it's I call it French fry rules. Right. French fries
11:28
Speaker 1: are not great unless they're fresh, uh, and they can
11:31
Speaker 1: be tricky to reheat them, wealth though it is possible
11:35
Speaker 1: if you eat some rabid right, just like fun, and
11:38
Speaker 1: then you put it in the fridge and take it
11:41
Speaker 1: out later and attempt to reheat it with all the
11:45
Speaker 1: ingredients mixed together, it's just not gonna it's gonna hit different.
11:48
Speaker 1: It's not going to be the same, and this is
11:52
Speaker 1: something people are, of course aware of. Uh. In even
11:55
Speaker 1: the dire times of World War Two, also, these gold
12:00
Speaker 1: food vendors played a very important part in society because
12:04
Speaker 1: government rations wouldn't come on time. They could be weeks late.
12:10
Speaker 1: There was also decreased agricultural production, as during any conflict. Right,
12:15
Speaker 1: see what's happening in Ukraine right now. Uh. And there
12:19
Speaker 1: might be simple human mismanagement of resources. I did not
12:23
Speaker 1: know this, uh, until doing some earlier research, but thousands
12:30
Speaker 1: and thousands of street food vendors were arrested for selling
12:34
Speaker 1: ramen after the war, and they were working for the Akuza. Yeah,
12:42
Speaker 1: that really does add a whole other layer to it,
12:44
Speaker 1: doesn't that, when you think about it, Um Yakuza being,
12:47
Speaker 1: of course, the infamous Um Organization in Japan responsible for
12:53
Speaker 1: organized crime, or as this is. This is a true story, folks,
12:57
Speaker 1: about going to get two into the details, but one
13:00
Speaker 1: time I was in Japan and accidentally hung out with
13:04
Speaker 1: the owner of a Karaoke bar, or a bar that
13:07
Speaker 1: had karaoke, uh, and we hung out until dawn, like
13:12
Speaker 1: until seven am something. When he wanted to go to
13:15
Speaker 1: another place. He owned and uh, I'm pretty sure that
13:20
Speaker 1: he was. He was Yuh Kusa. He said he worked
13:23
Speaker 1: in construction and sanitation and had a few interest in
13:27
Speaker 1: real estate. Nicest Guy. But the the Kuza is don't
13:32
Speaker 1: think of it the same way you would think of
13:34
Speaker 1: like the stereotypical mob. They're also really active in UM
13:40
Speaker 1: in helping locals after disasters historically. So it makes sense that,
13:45
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm not saying they're good guys, I'm
13:47
Speaker 1: just saying it makes sense that they would play a
13:50
Speaker 1: role in these black markets because they're seen as helping
13:55
Speaker 1: the locals, but they're making no mistake, they're also making
13:58
Speaker 1: money off of this endeavor. Right. It's not entirely charity, uh,
14:04
Speaker 1: and that's why it's organized crime and not a nonprofit organization. This,
14:09
Speaker 1: this is maybe where we introduce the man of the hour. No,
14:12
Speaker 1: Mr Momo Fuku. And Oh, what do we know about him? Yeah,
14:17
Speaker 1: we do know a bit. Uh. He was born in Taiwan,
14:20
Speaker 1: which has always been kind of a tumultuous region in
14:23
Speaker 1: terms of geopolitics and in terms of governance. At the
14:27
Speaker 1: time it was occupied by Japan, and then he moved
14:31
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty three to Osaka. Um. Obviously Japan was very,
14:37
Speaker 1: very chaotic and torn apart by war. He was seeing
14:41
Speaker 1: some of the kinds of things you were describing, ben
14:43
Speaker 1: in terms of people buying noodles from stalls in in
14:47
Speaker 1: these literal black markets. You know, these were markets where
14:51
Speaker 1: people were illegally selling things without the you know, permission,
14:55
Speaker 1: I guess, with the government. Um. The noodles the time
14:58
Speaker 1: were made from wheat flour. The was being donated by
15:01
Speaker 1: the US in order to keep civilians from starving. But
15:05
Speaker 1: instead of making bread, which is what you know, the
15:07
Speaker 1: U S would have, I guess, intended this to be
15:10
Speaker 1: used for uh, the Japanese were using it to make noodles.
15:14
Speaker 1: Bread wasn't really, it isn't really much of a of
15:17
Speaker 1: a common thing. Yeah, it's it's not. It's not as common.
15:21
Speaker 1: You'll you'll see it around, you know, in Sandos, in
15:24
Speaker 1: Uh convenience stores or convenience stores. But but yeah, it
15:29
Speaker 1: makes sense. You would take maybe this less common ingredients
15:34
Speaker 1: and you would make something that felt more common to
15:36
Speaker 1: your experience. We have to really paint the scene with
15:40
Speaker 1: what and I saw here and again that stuff of
15:44
Speaker 1: genius piece I mentioned. It was tough because that's an
15:47
Speaker 1: animated short it's spent largely for children, so we had
15:51
Speaker 1: to skip over some of the really terrible things that
15:56
Speaker 1: and I was experiencing. He's walking through Osaka. Like you said,
16:01
Speaker 1: it's the day after the Japanese surrender to the allied
16:04
Speaker 1: forces and Osaka did escape the horrors of atomic bombs,
16:11
Speaker 1: but that didn't mean that it escaped everything. It had
16:15
Speaker 1: been bombed to. Heck him back, uh, you know, office buildings,
16:19
Speaker 1: factories are destroyed and Ando is thinking what am I
16:25
Speaker 1: gonna do? I have to find some kind of job,
16:28
Speaker 1: and that's where he comes across what what you depicted earlier.
16:32
Speaker 1: And there's a group of people who are in some rubble,
16:36
Speaker 1: standing by some rubble behind a train station and they're
16:40
Speaker 1: lined up outside this guy's improvised Ram install and he
16:44
Speaker 1: says what is going on? People are willing to go
16:48
Speaker 1: through this much pain and inconvenience and suffering for a
16:54
Speaker 1: simple bowl of ramen? And then he said I get
16:58
Speaker 1: it now. Noodle Soup is comfort food and people are
17:03
Speaker 1: turning to Ramen for comfort. And he thinks what's worse
17:09
Speaker 1: is that hunger is the biggest issue today. He even
17:13
Speaker 1: had a quote where he later said, peace will come
17:16
Speaker 1: to the world when all its people have enough to eat.
17:20
Speaker 1: And so his new mission becomes, and he's not a
17:22
Speaker 1: cook at this point, by the way, his new mission
17:25
Speaker 1: becomes figuring out how Japan can feed its entire post
17:29
Speaker 1: war population. Yeah, and and he's he's he's thinking about
17:33
Speaker 1: this less like a cook and more like an innovator,
17:36
Speaker 1: or he's looking at it as a problem to solve.
17:39
Speaker 1: He knows that the Ramen, the noodle soup, is a
17:42
Speaker 1: comfort and is nourishing, uh, and also again, that it
17:46
Speaker 1: is a kind of a taste of home. It is
17:48
Speaker 1: something that makes people feel a little bit of warmth and,
17:51
Speaker 1: you know, Um, security in the face of all of
17:54
Speaker 1: this hor horrific adversity. Um. So he comes up with
17:58
Speaker 1: kind of a list of things that that need to
18:00
Speaker 1: be accomplished by his whatever, I guess, invention he's trying
18:05
Speaker 1: to come up with sort of like a next level
18:07
Speaker 1: shelf stable version of Robin. So, first and foremost, it
18:10
Speaker 1: has to taste good, uh, and then secondly, in importance,
18:14
Speaker 1: probably first honestly, is that it has to be non perishable,
18:19
Speaker 1: has to be be able to be prepared quickly. He
18:21
Speaker 1: specifically dialed in less than three minutes, presumably because there's
18:25
Speaker 1: no time to waste. Right. I mean I guess it
18:27
Speaker 1: really was a calculation of you know, maybe you don't
18:30
Speaker 1: have more than three minutes because you might be in
18:32
Speaker 1: a in a dangerous situation. Uh. Needs to be affordable and,
18:36
Speaker 1: of course, needs to be safe to eat and relatively healthy.
18:42
Speaker 1: We'll get that part of it a little later, right, right, right. Uh. Well,
18:47
Speaker 1: what is safe and healthy? Right? At this point he's
18:50
Speaker 1: probably thinking something that won't give you food poisoning, something
18:54
Speaker 1: that won't make you sick, uh, and will deliver calories.
18:59
Speaker 1: You know, two people who need energy. And he says, look,
19:02
Speaker 1: I also want people to be able to eat these
19:04
Speaker 1: at home so they don't have to go out in
19:07
Speaker 1: possibly dangerous areas, right, and wait like those poor folks
19:11
Speaker 1: by the rubble of the train station. So he builds
19:15
Speaker 1: a laboratory shed in his backyard and you can see
19:20
Speaker 1: a you can see reproduction of this at the Cup
19:24
Speaker 1: Noodles Museum in Japan. It's cool. I love Japanese Museum. So,
19:30
Speaker 1: of course, like any other inventor, he doesn't have U
19:35
Speaker 1: he doesn't have immediate success. Right. He has the lightbulb
19:38
Speaker 1: moment in his head. But then you get to the
19:40
Speaker 1: the sweaty part, the practical application of the dream. Uh.
19:44
Speaker 1: It is not until when he he hits on the
19:50
Speaker 1: thing that will really change the game for for his
19:53
Speaker 1: invention and therefore for the world. He's looking at his wife, Missoko,
19:58
Speaker 1: and she is frying to her up and he goes, Huh,
20:01
Speaker 1: the oil takes the moisture out of what she's cooking.
20:06
Speaker 1: And then he says, hang on, fried dried noodles can
20:12
Speaker 1: be remoisturized if you boil them in water. And he's
20:16
Speaker 1: sort of yes, and in himself, like any like any
20:19
Speaker 1: good improvisation game, he's going yes, and seasoning powder or
20:22
Speaker 1: dehydrated toppings. Why not dehydrate everything? We could add those,
20:27
Speaker 1: we can make so many flavors. And he says, I'M
20:31
Speaker 1: gonna go with chicken as as my first flavor in
20:36
Speaker 1: this new age of noodle. Why? White Chicken? That seems yeah,
20:41
Speaker 1: apparently he thought it was kind of had this American vibe,
20:46
Speaker 1: which is an interesting choice for for sure. I mean,
20:50
Speaker 1: not only was he concerned with the American market, I
20:53
Speaker 1: think he was just concerned with, uh, food restrictions from
20:57
Speaker 1: various religions Um, he he. He had a feeling that
21:00
Speaker 1: this would not only, you know, hit big in Japan
21:03
Speaker 1: and be a very functional thing, but across the world,
21:06
Speaker 1: and so he wanted to make sure there were no,
21:08
Speaker 1: you know, religious food or dietary restrictions they would prevent
21:11
Speaker 1: people from eating these. Um, you know, Hindus can't eat
21:15
Speaker 1: beef and Muslims can't eat pork. But to his knowledge,
21:17
Speaker 1: and I believe to my knowledge as well, there aren't
21:20
Speaker 1: any religions that prohibit the consumption of chicken. And even
21:30
Speaker 1: though you know there's I don't think it chicken has
21:33
Speaker 1: ever even been waved over this thing. It's more of
21:35
Speaker 1: just the perception of it. You know, this is a
21:38
Speaker 1: powdered uh seasoning blend that I maybe can contained in
21:42
Speaker 1: the original days some some sort of chicken assaults. But yeah,
21:46
Speaker 1: it's chicken flavor the way. Lookuas you know, lemon flavored. Uh. Look,
21:51
Speaker 1: I've always described as h you're drinking it and then
21:54
Speaker 1: someone down the hall, in another room whispers the name
21:57
Speaker 1: of the flavor and you go, I guess so, but anyway,
22:04
Speaker 1: this is so, this is big right, and he has
22:07
Speaker 1: a lot of foresight. I love the point about religious taboos.
22:11
Speaker 1: And yes, of course there are. There are, uh, multiple
22:15
Speaker 1: belief systems that forbid the consumption of animal flesh in general.
22:19
Speaker 1: But he's not thinking about that. It's just like what's
22:21
Speaker 1: the least objectionable thing, and so he lands on chicken
22:25
Speaker 1: and he wants to make this successiful to everyone. But
22:29
Speaker 1: it might surprise a lot of us would have been
22:33
Speaker 1: ramen fans by necessity at some point in our lives.
22:37
Speaker 1: Being very diplomatic there ramen when it first came out,
22:41
Speaker 1: instant ramen was considered kind of a fancy thing. It
22:47
Speaker 1: was a little bit of a splurge to get it.
22:48
Speaker 1: It wasn't like you would see it today, where you're thinking,
22:51
Speaker 1: I have a dollar fifty, how many of these packs
22:54
Speaker 1: can I get? Sort of reminds me of like how
22:56
Speaker 1: microwaves are first perceived when they came out, versus how
22:59
Speaker 1: they were perceived it over time. You know, initially they
23:02
Speaker 1: were like the wave of the future, literally though, the
23:04
Speaker 1: micro wave of the future, and like they were all
23:06
Speaker 1: these like, you know, cookbooks for making things in the microwave,
23:09
Speaker 1: and then it kind of just became this like okay,
23:11
Speaker 1: the microwave is the last ditch effort to to make something,
23:15
Speaker 1: you know, instant or reheat a leftovers and like that.
23:18
Speaker 1: Really is no microwave cooking per se Um. But yeah,
23:21
Speaker 1: it was the same deal and it was also quite expensive.
23:24
Speaker 1: It was because, because it was kind of a radical
23:26
Speaker 1: idea to to do what he was doing. No one
23:28
Speaker 1: else quite uh crack that code yet. So it was
23:31
Speaker 1: around thirty five yen, or a buck eighty five um
23:35
Speaker 1: when you adjust for inflation. And this also comes from
23:41
Speaker 1: that fabulous mental philos article a brief history of Ramen
23:45
Speaker 1: by Michelle dead cast and so this was really pricey,
23:49
Speaker 1: around six times in fact, more expensive than standard noodles.
23:55
Speaker 1: And so now and has to go into the world
24:00
Speaker 1: of marketing and he thinks I have to sell that.
24:03
Speaker 1: I need hearts and minds right converted to the Church
24:06
Speaker 1: of instant ramen. And so he says, I'M gonna have
24:10
Speaker 1: tasting events, I'm gonna take it directly to the public,
24:14
Speaker 1: and this is very successful. Chicken Ramen, C H I
24:20
Speaker 1: K I n catches on and it it blows every
24:25
Speaker 1: other competitor out of the water. It's one of the
24:27
Speaker 1: most ubiquitous foods in post war Japan. The fact that
24:32
Speaker 1: it is so convenient to make for a lot of people.
24:37
Speaker 1: That makes up for the cost. Prices eventually went down.
24:40
Speaker 1: It's an economy of scale, and I think this was
24:43
Speaker 1: also very smart of Momofuku, because he could have just
24:47
Speaker 1: kept selling it at the same price point and then,
24:49
Speaker 1: as economy of scale kicked in and it costs him
24:52
Speaker 1: less to produce each unit, he could have pocketed the profits,
24:55
Speaker 1: but he didn't. He stuck by his guns because he
24:58
Speaker 1: wanted this to be a wordable. So that's that. I
25:02
Speaker 1: think speaks highly to his character. And we had some
25:07
Speaker 1: math here, also for mental floss, with the help of
25:10
Speaker 1: our friends over at fast company, a Lisa Friedman, writing
25:15
Speaker 1: the surprising origin story of the ICONIC Cup noodles. Here's
25:19
Speaker 1: what here's what they did with the math. They said. Now,
25:22
Speaker 1: if you look at it, and we're pulling these from numbers,
25:25
Speaker 1: an average pack of ramen costs like a quarter. So
25:29
Speaker 1: if you ate it three times a day, every day
25:33
Speaker 1: for a year, you would only be spending two and
25:36
Speaker 1: seventy five bucks for food. Of course, also, as we'll find,
25:40
Speaker 1: you should not eat ramen three times a day for
25:43
Speaker 1: an entire year. Just don't. Unfortunately, it's not Christmas if
25:47
Speaker 1: it's every day right now. Yeah, it's got a whole
25:50
Speaker 1: lot of sodium in it. I think around Uh UH
25:53
Speaker 1: nearly two thousand milligrams of sodium and and every you know,
25:56
Speaker 1: one of those Uh delectable fried wears of top ramen. Yeah, yeah,
26:04
Speaker 1: around this time we see diversification of ramen. Different parts
26:09
Speaker 1: of the country start having their own styles of Ramen,
26:13
Speaker 1: like Tong Katsu, which is one of my favorites, which
26:18
Speaker 1: comes from Fuko Yoka. Obviously we're not native Japanese speakers. Folks,
26:24
Speaker 1: uh this this region is at the center of Japan's
26:27
Speaker 1: pork industry, so it makes sense that they would make
26:29
Speaker 1: Tom Katsu, which is again just h delicious. There was
26:33
Speaker 1: this place in our old office called Tonton and they
26:36
Speaker 1: had no right to be as good as they were.
26:38
Speaker 1: You get the really solid and Robin. Certainly, you know,
26:41
Speaker 1: had a big, big cop in the last you know,
26:44
Speaker 1: ten years or so kind of you know becoming first
26:47
Speaker 1: probably in places like New York and L A, kind
26:49
Speaker 1: of becoming a little more chic Um, you know, outside
26:52
Speaker 1: of just like the traditional kind of foodstall type situation
26:56
Speaker 1: that there's maybe family run, maybe you know been around
26:58
Speaker 1: longer generationally, but then kind of they're. There are these
27:01
Speaker 1: more bespoke kind of ramen places like Tonton Um and,
27:05
Speaker 1: you know, of course, like Mamafuku, that are all jumping
27:09
Speaker 1: off of that tradition but then adding their own kind
27:12
Speaker 1: of take to it. And then really the broth is
27:15
Speaker 1: the magic. Like, if you it takes time. You know,
27:19
Speaker 1: it takes time, effort and know how to really do
27:22
Speaker 1: it right. I mean I think a traditional Dunkatsu broth
27:26
Speaker 1: has to be boiled for over a day, sometimes even longer. Um,
27:32
Speaker 1: there's actually a documentary about ramen that I saw on
27:34
Speaker 1: a plane recently. I have to look it up and
27:36
Speaker 1: see if I can find out what the name was.
27:38
Speaker 1: But Um, you know, when you boil these pig bones,
27:42
Speaker 1: you're essentially breaking down the marrow and the fat and
27:46
Speaker 1: all of the good stuff inside the bone to create
27:48
Speaker 1: this kind of cloudy, you know, Mommy rich broth that
27:53
Speaker 1: really is kind of the base of the flavor of
27:56
Speaker 1: the whole thing. And then usually, I think, a piece
27:57
Speaker 1: of pork belly. M Yeah, I like a like an
28:03
Speaker 1: egg in there as well. That's cool. Eggs that are
28:06
Speaker 1: sort of marinated a little bit like there's like a
28:08
Speaker 1: hard but a soft boiled eggs almost a brownish quality
28:12
Speaker 1: because they marinate them in mirroring and so I yeah.
28:15
Speaker 1: And then also there's UH Miso ramen. That would be
28:18
Speaker 1: an example of Tara, the seasoning that you ladle into
28:22
Speaker 1: the bottom of the Ramen bowl. I believe Misso ramen
28:26
Speaker 1: comes from chefs in northern Hakkaido. Uh. They're the first
28:31
Speaker 1: ones to add miso to Ramen as a as a
28:36
Speaker 1: way of fortifying one against the cold winters, and those
28:41
Speaker 1: winters are cold. I have a friend who actually grew
28:45
Speaker 1: up in a very far northern area of Japan and
28:53
Speaker 1: one time her contact lens case froze. Yeah, it that
29:00
Speaker 1: cold Max and so she said she was just going.
29:03
Speaker 1: She just went and decided she would take the morning off.
29:07
Speaker 1: So it makes sense. So we see similar innovations across
29:10
Speaker 1: the world in cold climates. But back to and Oh
29:17
Speaker 1: he's not done yet. Well, hold up, hold up, we
29:21
Speaker 1: I think off Mike. Folks, we have both been getting
29:25
Speaker 1: so into instant noodles right now that no, I think
29:29
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to take a noodle break. You want
29:32
Speaker 1: to do you want to break and go eat some noodles? Yeah,
29:35
Speaker 1: just briefly, and then we'll come back with UH, part
29:38
Speaker 1: two of of the story of instant noodles. I think
29:42
Speaker 1: are I think we got a little carried away with
29:44
Speaker 1: our noodle exuberance and this one ended up being a
29:46
Speaker 1: little longer than we expected. But all good stuff, Um,
29:50
Speaker 1: and so look forward to part two coming at you
29:52
Speaker 1: next time. I love noodle exuberance. Noodle Zuberants, what a
29:57
Speaker 1: great phrase. I love the term exuberant and general that's
30:01
Speaker 1: why we exuberantly. Thank UH super producer, Mr Max Williams,
30:05
Speaker 1: returning from his time abroad. Thanks, of course, also to
30:09
Speaker 1: guest super producer Tory Harrison, who pinch hit, pinched hit,
30:15
Speaker 1: pinch hitted for us. Uh. She also creates ridiculous news.
30:19
Speaker 1: Checked that show out. Who Else? Who Else? Who Else? Oh,
30:24
Speaker 1: Christopher Rociota is here in spirit, of course, also a
30:26
Speaker 1: big fan of noodles. I was just in his town
30:28
Speaker 1: about a week ago and he turned me onto a
30:30
Speaker 1: fantastic robin shop. He's a good dude. He's a good dude.
30:34
Speaker 1: Thanks also to Eve's Jeff coat, thanks to our pal
30:38
Speaker 1: an a hostner. Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed the
30:42
Speaker 1: track you're probably hearing right now. whool anybody else? I
30:47
Speaker 1: guess we could do Jonathan Strickland at the end, not
30:50
Speaker 1: to mention Jonathan Strickland, the Quister, h a k a
30:54
Speaker 1: Jonathan noodleman Um. Hopefully we'll see you real soon and
30:59
Speaker 1: we'll definitely see you next time. For more podcasts from
31:09
Speaker 1: my heart radio, visit the I heart radio APP, apple
31:12
Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.