Fifty Years of Instant Noodles
Hat tip to Disgrasian for pointing out such an iconic birthday. My first reaction was to text my brother: NO WAI! Instant noodles is fifty years old today! Wat a celebrasian! (Okay, it was a couple of days ago, so what?)
I practically grew up on instant noodles. Maggi Mee is a HUGE household brand name in Malaysia, to the point that instead of saying "instant noodles" we say "Maggi Mee". My dad worked for a Nestle division which developed flavours for Maggi, so we had plenty of noodles at home. I ate a lot of chicken flavour because that was all I could eat at the time.
When I was 8, we started having Cintan (pronounced chin-tahn) Mee Goreng noodles. These noodles are slightly different in that once you cook it, you drain out the water and then mix in the seasoning.
We experimented with different flavours and different brands along the way. One of my favourites which got discontinued was the Maggi Abalone flavour. I was kind of upset.
Other favourites of mine include:
Maggi brand:
- Curry
Cintan:
- Asli (soup and dry)
- Chicken
Myojo:
- Vegetarian
(Myojo has become extremely hard to find recently. Damned shame.)
Mamee:
- Asli (dry)
- Chicken (soup)
- Curry (soup)
Eating instant noodles is the thing that every poor struggling student eats in Malaysia, and probably here too - it's cheap carbs, for crying out loud. It's fun! For my discerning taste, quality is fairly important - I don't like Canadian brands because I can totally taste the chemicals. Noodle quality also depends on how crunchy-yet-soft the thing is, how little/much water is needed to complement the noodle-eating (I have noodles AND soup in my spoon, rather than eat the noodles first then drink the soup), and how strong the flavours are.
One of the joys of working for Givaudan was that I got to take home all these weird foreign noodle brands to try out. We tasted stuff from surrounding Asian countries for comparison reasons. We fed them to tasters to see how our noodles compared as well. Noodle-making is one of those consumerist, yet artistic, things.
The NPR article is pretty awesome, by the way:
The funeral included speeches by prime ministers and chanting by the monks, but there were also goodie bags. Each attendee received a five pack of Chikin Ramen, a container of Cup Noodles, and a book of Ando's famous sayings. I happened to be struggling over whether to begin a career as a writer. Then I read the first saying in the book: "I invented instant ramen when I was 48 and Cup Noodles at 61. In life, there is no such thing as too late."
A few days later, after I flew home, a friend asked if she should leave her boyfriend. Unsure what to say, I opened Ando's book. One saying was related to his failure to sell a product called instant rice. "When you enter a market," Ando had written, "do it slowly. When you withdraw, do it quickly." My friend was single the next day.
Soon all my friends wanted advice from the inventor of instant ramen. "Flavors taste best to those who appreciate them," I counseled one. "Food is balance," I instructed another. Still, some of the sayings were downright cryptic. One friend asked, should I propose to my girlfriend? I answered with Ando's most famous utterance: "Mankind is Noodlekind."
We debated what Ando meant by that, and eventually decided he meant my friend should propose. Then we cooked and ate the entire Chikin Ramen five pack. This year, instant ramen demand is expected to surpass 100 billion servings worldwide. Thank you, Momofuku, and not just for the noodles.
*dances and spreads sprinkles around*
I practically grew up on instant noodles. Maggi Mee is a HUGE household brand name in Malaysia, to the point that instead of saying "instant noodles" we say "Maggi Mee". My dad worked for a Nestle division which developed flavours for Maggi, so we had plenty of noodles at home. I ate a lot of chicken flavour because that was all I could eat at the time.
When I was 8, we started having Cintan (pronounced chin-tahn) Mee Goreng noodles. These noodles are slightly different in that once you cook it, you drain out the water and then mix in the seasoning.
We experimented with different flavours and different brands along the way. One of my favourites which got discontinued was the Maggi Abalone flavour. I was kind of upset.
Other favourites of mine include:
Maggi brand:
- Curry
Cintan:
- Asli (soup and dry)
- Chicken
Myojo:
- Vegetarian
(Myojo has become extremely hard to find recently. Damned shame.)
Mamee:
- Asli (dry)
- Chicken (soup)
- Curry (soup)
Eating instant noodles is the thing that every poor struggling student eats in Malaysia, and probably here too - it's cheap carbs, for crying out loud. It's fun! For my discerning taste, quality is fairly important - I don't like Canadian brands because I can totally taste the chemicals. Noodle quality also depends on how crunchy-yet-soft the thing is, how little/much water is needed to complement the noodle-eating (I have noodles AND soup in my spoon, rather than eat the noodles first then drink the soup), and how strong the flavours are.
One of the joys of working for Givaudan was that I got to take home all these weird foreign noodle brands to try out. We tasted stuff from surrounding Asian countries for comparison reasons. We fed them to tasters to see how our noodles compared as well. Noodle-making is one of those consumerist, yet artistic, things.
The NPR article is pretty awesome, by the way:
The funeral included speeches by prime ministers and chanting by the monks, but there were also goodie bags. Each attendee received a five pack of Chikin Ramen, a container of Cup Noodles, and a book of Ando's famous sayings. I happened to be struggling over whether to begin a career as a writer. Then I read the first saying in the book: "I invented instant ramen when I was 48 and Cup Noodles at 61. In life, there is no such thing as too late."
A few days later, after I flew home, a friend asked if she should leave her boyfriend. Unsure what to say, I opened Ando's book. One saying was related to his failure to sell a product called instant rice. "When you enter a market," Ando had written, "do it slowly. When you withdraw, do it quickly." My friend was single the next day.
Soon all my friends wanted advice from the inventor of instant ramen. "Flavors taste best to those who appreciate them," I counseled one. "Food is balance," I instructed another. Still, some of the sayings were downright cryptic. One friend asked, should I propose to my girlfriend? I answered with Ando's most famous utterance: "Mankind is Noodlekind."
We debated what Ando meant by that, and eventually decided he meant my friend should propose. Then we cooked and ate the entire Chikin Ramen five pack. This year, instant ramen demand is expected to surpass 100 billion servings worldwide. Thank you, Momofuku, and not just for the noodles.
*dances and spreads sprinkles around*