Ramen Noodles Warning: Highly Addictive!

Oct 24, 2011 19:16 没有评论

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Nuts about Noodles

Peer into any slapdash street stall that sprouts on the Tenjin sidewalks after 5 o’clock and you’ll see that folks in Fukuoka are mad about ramen. Despite the city’s plethora of fine restaurants and food shops, pinstriped bankers and chic OLs squeeze onto splintered benches to sit cheek-to-cheek with laborers, students, and shoppers to slurp down a bowl of hot noodles before heading home. Rare is the native who will not endure a long line to sample the fare at an eatery hailed by the gourmet grapevine, drop into an eye-catching shop on impulse, or savor a bowl of tonkotsu (rich pork broth) ramen after a night of drinking. No understanding of Fukuoka is complete without a taste of its unique ramen culture. Bon appetit!

From La Mian to Ramen
Ramen is Japanese food created in the Chinese style, consisting of Chinese noodles made from wheat flour, seasoned broth, and such condiments as chashu (roast pork), bean sprouts, or bamboo shoots. Yet few realize that it took 1,400 years for ramen to appear in Japan after Chinese noodle-making techniques were introduced here.

By the sixth century, the Chinese developed a technique for making long, thin noodles from wheat dough. This spread to the West, resulting in the creation of Italian pasta, and also crossed the East China Sea to Japan, where it became instrumental in creating udon, soba, somen, and, in the 20th century, ramen. The Chinese refined the technique in the 15th century by adding salt to flour and stretching the dough by hand. These noodles were called la mian–“stretched noodles”. A few centuries later, they added a natural soda to the dough before stretching it. This soda became the main ingredient of kansui, an alkaline solution of potassium and sodium carbonates for enhancing noodle texture and color.

Nowadays, most shops use commercial kansui made from chemical compounds, but some use natural ingredients from Mongolia. Though the Japanese avidly adopted this process, they wouldn’t eat the Chinese noodle dishes generously laden with pork, even after the 1,200 year ban on meat eating was lifted in the Meiji period. The Japanese shunned pork until the Taisho period vogue for Chinese food.

Turning Japanese
Chinese merchants ate noodle dishes in stalls in the Chinatown sections of Nagasaki, Kobe, and Yokohama after Japan’s national isolation ended. Japanese gradually discovered these stalls, and the trickle became a flood when they began serving noodle dishes flavored with soy sauce called nankin or shina soba.
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Japan’s 1931 invasion of China cut short the shina soba boom, and their defeat in the ensuing war resulted in unprecedented food shortages. American wheat was easier to come by than rice. Then, in Fukuoka, a dish called Chuka soba appeared at a stall near Hakata Station. Hakatakko enthusiastically took to the new food that recreated the taste of northern Chinese dishes, as it was cheap, nutritious, and hearty.

Instant and International
When Nisshin Foods’ founder Momofuku Ando created instant chicken ramen in 1958, ramen became known throughout the country and spurred others to create their own recipes. Ando followed up with the Cup Noodle product in 1971, which became a global sensation. Ramen had suddenly become an international food.
What some consider a quickly-scarfed snack food in fact resulted from the long development of noodle cuisine in Japan.


Confessions of a Ramen Freak: Scott Newby

“I would crawl over my dead mother’s body to eat a bowl of tonkotsu ramen.”

Australian, Scott is passionate about his love for tonkotsu ramen. One rainy afternoon, a Fukuoka Now staff member accompanied Scott and his English students to chow down at one of his favorite shops, Hakata Daruma (092-761-1958).

Scott’s Ramen Rap Sheet
– Ramen for breakfast? Fine with him.
– Drank too much? Recover with tonkotsu ramen.
– Have to stand in line for an hour? No problem.
– How often? Four or five times a week.
– Where has he gone for ramen? As far as Kurume, Oita, and Kagoshima.



FN: Why do you love ramen so much?
S: Tonkotsu ramen has everything I like in food. I love salty and oily food. Itユs fast, cheap, easyノIユm lazy. Itユs just perfect for me.
FN: How do you find a good ramen shop?
S: The standard Japanese tip is “if itユs busy itユs probably good.” Usually the worse the smell, the better it is. There’s no real way to tell. If the shop smells really, really bad like old tennis shoes, the ramen is usually good. Some shops are super dirty but the taste is insane, and some shops are nice and the ramen’s horrible.
FN: Do you have any tips for foreigners who havenユt been to that many ramen shops?
S: Ignore the smell, first up. Donユt let the smell deter you from going into a shop. Ah, thatユs the hardest obstacle to overcome. Usually if I ask foreigners why they donユt eat ramen, their answer is “because it smells so bad”.
Second, you should try different shops. I’ve got a ramen guidebook I always keep in my backpack. I know dozens of shops that are just as good as most popular shops. Then if I have the time, I go looking for a good shop.

Just as we heard–the man’s crazy about ramen. The love of ramen has no borders.



Ramen Etiquette

Well, you can eat ramen whenever and however you please, but according to the Japanese Ramen Society, there is only one proper way. Nathan Wawruck, a Vancouver native and recently converted ramen freak, demonstrates how.

1. Cast an admiring glance at the ramen served to you–just for a few seconds.

2. Pick up the chopsticks and smooth everything out.

3. Rearrange the condiments to suit you, and then slurp up a mouthful of noodles and broth.

4. Take a break from the noodles to enjoy the condiments and the broth. Then, alternate among the three.

5. Dig out the remaining noodles from the bottom of the bowl and take your time with the last mouthful…”Gochisosama!”



Ramen Globalization

Where do noodles come from?
The noodles are the indispensable part of the meal. Of course, they are made primarily of flour. But only 9% of the 6.22 million tons of wheat consumed annually in Japan is grown here. Japan’s imported wheat comes from: USA (53.7%), Canada (26.8%), and Australia (19.4%), according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, 2002.

Some ramen chefs insist on noodles made only from Japanese wheat, but most use the high quality wheat grown especially in Australia for consumption as noodles in Japan. It’s likely that the thin chewy noodles Scott raves about were made with wheat grown in his homeland.

Ramen as a Global Food
Even in China, birthplace of noodle cuisine, the word ramen is synonymous with the instant variety. Throughout the USA, products such as Sapporo Ichiban’s shrimp and chicken flavored instant ramen are to be found on the shelves of supermarket and convenience stores. What`s more, Asian grocery stores in the US have a stunning variety of imported instant ramen products.

There are 54.7 billion ramen meals consumed annually throughout the world. While you thought “Made In Japan” meant compact discs, automobile technology, or Akira Kurosawa films, that honor also goes to instant ramen.

Convenience is just one reason instant ramen was accepted overseas. Another key to success was exporting the production technology and letting local companies create flavors to suit local palates. Some of you may have noticed that instant ramen soups in your home country have quite different tastes compared to the ones in Japan where there are over 800 instant ramen brands.
Top 10 Worldwide Instant Ramen Consumers

1. China: 19.1 billion
2. Indonesia: 10.9 billion
3. Japan: 5.27 billion
4. Korea: 3.65 billion
5. USA: 3.3 billion
6. Philippines: 2 billion
7. Thailand: 1.7 billion
7. Vietnam: 1.7 billion
8. Russia: 1.5 billion
9. Brazil: 1.19 billion
10. Taiwan: 940 million

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Data: International Ramen Manufacturers Association (2003)

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Tips on Selecting A Ramen Shop

1. A shop with a huge pot for boiling the noodles
2. Staff use a special mesh tool to scoop the boiled noodles
3. Smallish bowls, (good things come in small packages)
4. Intense ramen competition in the neighborhood
5. Smaller shops that seat about 15
6. A short and simple menu
7. A picky proprietor constantly trying to refine his distinctive flavor
8. Chefs choosy about their chashu (roast pork)
9. A shop that closes after they’re sold out of the day’s batch
10. A family operation, or one with a few part-time workers



Ramen Q & A

What! You still have questions about ramen?

Q: Do most people usually visit ramen shops alone?
A: In a recent survey, only 20% of the 20,000 respondents answered that they go alone. The average time for eating a bowl of ramen was eight minutes for women and five minutes for men. If the broth cools and the noodles get limp, forget it. Real ramen eaters don’t engage in chit chat until their bowls are empty.
Q: Ramen was originally called Nankin soba, shina soba, or chuka soba. Why was the term soba (buckwheat) used, though the noodles contained no buckwheat flour?
A: The most commonly accepted theory is that adding eggs and kansui results in noodles of a different texture than udon, and resembles soba.

Q: Why does tonkotsu ramen taste so good after a few drinks?
A: The inosinic acid in the pork luckily neutralizes the alcohol in the body.

Q: Why are Nagahama ramen noodles so thin?
A: The Hakata fish market moved to Nagahama in 1955, where Nagahama ramen was created. It was made to satisfy the needs of the busy brokers working without breaks. The thinness allowed the noodles to be boiled quickly. The market also developed the now-common practice of offering a second helping of noodles called メkaedamaモ.

Q: Is ramen fast food?
A: Granted, a customer can walk into a shop, be served a bowl of ramen, consume it, and leave in 15 minutes. Yet many shops take a full day to prepare their broth, so the term fast food is not really appropriate.

Q: In Hakata, who was the first to serve chuka soba in tonkotsu soup?
A: Shigeru Tsuda, who was repatriated to Japan from the Asian continent after the war. He tried to recreate the flavor of the 10-sen soba he ate in northern China. This was chuka soba, a tonkotsu soup with cloudy broth.

Q: Who was the first to serve chuka soba with tonkotsu soup at a yatai in Hakata?
A: Shigeru Tsuda, who was repatriated to Japan from the Asian continent after the war. He tried to recreate the flavor of the 10-sen soba he ate in northern China.

Q: What is the “perfect” ramen?
A: There is no standard definition of what ramen is supposed to be, so enthusiastic chefs devote a lot of time and energy to their own flavorful creations. Whether they serve Hakata ramen, Kurume ramen, or another variety, any 100 ramen shops will have 100 different flavors.

Information sources:
1. Okada, Tetsu Ramenno Tanjou. Tokyo: Chikuma Shinsho, 2002.
2. Hakugaku Kodawari Club. Ganso! Ramenbon Tokyo: Kawade Yume Bunko, 1997.

 

 

 

 

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福岡の人はコーヒーを飲むよりもラーメンを食べたがる…。これはちょっとオーバーに聞こえるかもしれない。でも、うまいと評判の味を確かめるために長~い行列に並んだり、帰宅途中、チラリと目に入ったラーメンの看板に誘惑されて赤のれんをくぐったり、飲んだあと、ふとコクのあるトンコツラーメンが食べたくなってしまう人は多いはず。そう、独特のラーメン文化を生み出した都市のひとつとして、やっぱりラーメンを抜きにして福岡は語れない!

ラーミエンからラーメンへ
まずはラーメン誕生のお話をちょっとだけ。ひとくちに言えば、ラーメンは中華めん、スープ、タレ、トッピングからなる日本が生んだ「中華風の和食めん料理」。だれもが当たり前のように食べているけど、中国から「めん打ち」の技術が日本に伝えられて、「和食・ラーメン」の出現までに、ナント1400年もの歴史があったのダ!
食文化でも世界のトップを誇る中国。すでに6世紀前半には小麦粉のめん生地を細長く延ばす調理技術が発達しつつあった。この技術が後にシルクロードを経てイタリアでパスタとなり、海を渡った日本ではうどん、蕎麦、そうめん、そして20世紀にはラーメンとなる。ちなみにおよそ600年前の中国で、小麦粉に塩を加えて手で引き延ばす拉麺(ラーミエンと読む)が登場する。年代ははっきりしないが、数百年前には
小麦粉に中国の北方地方でとれる天然ソーダ(後の「かん水」の主原料)を入れてめんの延びをよくし、なめらかな食感にする技術も生まれた。現在、化学合成のかん水を使うのがほとんどだけど、モンゴル産の天然モノを使うラーメン店もある。
日本は中国のスグレためん打ちの技術は熱心に採りいれた。けど、豚肉をふんだんに使った中国式めん料理の濃厚な味わい方は、明治時代に入って1200年続いた肉食禁忌が解禁されてもまったく関心がなかった。大正時代に中華料理ブームが訪れるまで、どうやら日本人はブタ肉を嫌っていたらしい。
ジャパナイズのはじまり
一方、鎖国が終わって開港された長崎・神戸・横浜にできたチャイナタウンでは、華僑たちが屋台で旨そうなめん料理を食べていた。これに日本人もジワジワと惹きつけられる。日本人好みのしょうゆ味のめん料理が出てくるようになると、「南京そば」、「シナそば」とよばれて、チャルメラ屋台は、がぜんポピュラーになってくる。
1931年に日本が中国侵略を始めたころから、「シナそば」ブームはいったん影をひそめる。そして敗戦。日本は空前の食糧難を体験する。当時アメリカ産の小麦粉は米に比べて手に入りやすかった。中華めん料理の人気が再燃するのはこのころだ。福岡では「中華そば」という名の、中国北部の味を再現した安くて栄養たっぷりの脂っこい新感覚のめん料理が博多駅付近の屋台に登場。これが博多っ子にすんなりと、そして熱く受け入れられる。

インスタントでインターナショナルに
1958年には日清食品の創業者、安藤百福(ももふく)さんがインスタント・チキンラーメンを世に送り出す。これがきっかけとなって「ラーメン」という名称はまたたくまに全国に広がり、各地のラーメン創造熱にも拍車をかける。ラーメン大ブーム時代の到来だ。1971年、これまた安藤さんの発明、「カップヌードル」が誕生し、海外でも大ヒット。ラーメンはついにインターナショナルな食べ物となる。
ラーメン誕生の歴史をふりかえってみると、これまでスナック感覚で気軽に食べていたラーメンが、なんだか日本めん文化の集大成のように見えてきた?!



ラーメンフリーク、スコット・ニュービー

「バスにひかれて死ぬよりも、トンコツラーメンを食べ過ぎて死んだほうがマシ。」「死んでもまたトンコツラーメンを食う、ただそれだけのためにもう一度生まれたい。」聴いてるほうが赤面しそうなラブソングを一人酔いしれながら歌うストリート・ミュージシャンのように、スコットはトンコツラーメンへの思いを熱く語る。ある雨上がりのお昼どき、英会話の生徒を連れてお気に入りのラーメンショップ、「博多だるま」(電話 092-761-1958)へ向かう彼にフクオカ・ナウのスタッフが同行した。

・朝食にラーメンもOK。
・酔いつぶれたら、トンコツラーメンで回復。
・うまいラーメンが食べられるなら、1時間並んでも平気。
・週に4、5回はラーメンを食べる。
・ラーメンを食べるために久留米、大分、そして鹿児島まで遠征。
FN: なんでそげんトンコツラーメンが好いとぉと?
Scott: 好きなもんが全部入っとぉけん。こってりスープにチャーシュー、固めの細めん
に博多ネギ。それに早くて安くて気軽に食べられろ。もーカンペキやね。

FN: おいしいラーメンショップはどげんして見つけると?
Scott: よぉ「混んどぉ店はだいたいうまい」って言うやろ。俺に言わせ
れば、はき古したスニーカーみたいな匂いのする店が、けっこうおいしかったりする。
逆に店はあの独特のトンコツの匂いはせんけど、肝心のラーメンがイマイ
チやったりね。でも匂いも味もいいとこもあるけんねぇ。

FN: 海外から来とぉ人たちで、インスタントラーメン以外まだ一度もホンモノの
ラーメンを食べたことがない人に、なんかいいアドバイスある?
Scott: あの匂いがダメって人がけっこう多いっちゃんねぇ。でもあのクサさの向こ
うに美味しい快楽があることを知って欲しい。あといろんなラーメン屋にトライ
したほうがいいかもね。人気店顔負けの店がナン10軒ってあるけん。俺とか
ラーメン・ガイドブックも常にバックパックに入れて持ち歩きようけど、それ以外
にも暇さえあればどっかうまいラーメン屋がないか歩き回って探しようもん。

うーん、ウワサ通りのラーメンマニア。九州ラーメンの味に惚れ込むのに国境はないのだ!



『日本ラーメン研究会』による、正しいラーメンの食べ方

好きなよ~に食べるのが一番おいしいよね。でも「これが正統派の
ラーメンの食べ方」も一応おさえておこう。この夏バンクーバーから福岡へ
やって来たネイサン・ワウラックがデモンストレート!
1. 出されたラーメンを、じっくり観賞する。数秒以内にネ!

2. ハシを取り、表面をササッとならす。

3. トッピングを好みの位置に変えて適量のめんをすすりながら、めんにからんだスープを同時に味わう。

4. めんは一休みしてトッピングを楽しみ、スープを直接すする。それから、めん・トッピング・スープとタイミングよく進める。

5. 底に残っためんをからめ取って、最後の一口をじっくり…ごちそうさま!



ラーメン・グローバリゼーション

日本の代表的国民食、ラーメンの「めん」は…
ラーメンになくてはならない「めん」。その主原料はもちろん小麦粉だけど、日本で1年間に消費されるおよそ622万トンの小麦のうち、国内で生産されているのはたったの9パーセント。日本へ輸入される小麦の内訳はアメリカ(53.7%)、カナダ(26.8%)、オーストラリア(19.4%)となっている(農林水産省: 2002年)。
こだわりのラーメン店では国産の小麦粉のみを使うところもあるけど、ほとんどの店はオーストラリアで日本向けに「めん用」として作られた品質の高い小麦を使っているはず。スコットさん(前ページ)が深く愛する細くてコシのあるあのメンは、彼の故郷の大地で育った可能性が高い。

グローバル食品になった「ラーメン」
今やめん料理を生み出した国、中国でも「ラーメン」と言えばインスタントラーメンのこと。アメリカのコンビニやスーパーでは、“SAPPORO ICHIBAN”のエビ風味、チキン風味、なんてのを必ず見かけるけど、アジアン・グローサリー・ショップに行けば、アジアの国々から輸入された多彩なインスタントラーメン各種が色鮮やかに陳列されている。それにしても世界中で1年間に547億食という気が遠くなるような数のインスタントラーメンが食べられているのにはオドロキ。なにしろ「20世紀の世界をうならせたメイド・イン・ジャパン」のナンバーワンに輝いたのが、コンパクトディスクでも自動車技術でも黒澤明でもなく、インスタントラーメンだったというから、そのグローバルぶりは言うまでもない。
もちろんインスタントラーメンが海外でウケた理由はただ単に便利さだけではなさそうだ。製造技術だけを輸出して、味は現地のローカルな好みに合わせるといった発想も成功のカギだったらしい。そういえばアメリカのスーパーで買ったインスタントラーメンは、めんの質はさておきスープの味が食べなれた日本のそれと、フレーバーがまったく違っていて日本のインスタントラーメンが恋しくなった記憶がある。



ラーメン通が伝授するうまいラーメン屋の選び方
1. めんを茹でる釜が大きい
2. 茹で上がっためんは、すくいアミを使って揚げる
3. ドンブリは小さめ
4. ラーメン激戦地の中にある
5. 店構えは、あまり広くなく15席ぐらい
6. メニューは単純明快で短い
7. 店の主人は個性豊かで研究熱心
8. とくに、チャーシューにこだわっている
9. 仕込み分が売り切れたら、そく閉店する
10. 家族だけか、アルバイトの少人数でがんばっている



Ramen Q & A
まだまだありそう、ラーメンにまつわる疑問

Q: ラーメン店には「一人で入る」のが基本なの?
A:「ラーメンはだれと食べに行く?」ある最新の世論調査によると、2万人の回答者のうち、「ひとりで」と答えたのはたったの5人に1人。1杯のラーメンを食べるのにかかる所要時間の平均は女性8分、男性5分。めんが伸びてスープがさめてしまったら、それはもうラーメンじゃない。ラーメンのうまさをじゅうぶん味わいたい時は、孤独な世界に入る。食べてる最中にトモダチが恋の悩みを打ち明けはじめても無視! 食べ終わって満足して、お勘定も済んで外に出てから耳をかそう。

Q: ラーメンの原型は「南京そば」、「シナそば」、「中華そば」だけど、そば粉も入っていないのに「そば」と呼んだのはなぜ?
A: いろんな説があるけど、一番有力なのは「卵やかん水を入れることで、うどんと全く異なる歯ざわりが得られ、そばに似てくる」というもの。

Q: お酒を飲んだ後、トンコツラーメンが妙にうまい!と感じる理由は?
A: そのヒミツはトンコツに含まれているイノシン酸。これは体内のアルコールを中和してくれるというスグレもの。カラダは何でも知っている!?

Q: 福岡といえば「長浜ラーメン」。長浜のめんが細いのはどうして?
A: 1955年、博多の魚市場は長浜に移動した。ここで生まれたのが「長浜ラーメン」。市場で休む暇なく働く仲買人たちのニーズにあわせて、めんはスグに茹であがるように細く、そして「まだ食べたりん」人には「替え玉」と呼ばれる、めん追加サービスが登場した。

Q: ラーメンはファーストフード?
A: 店にさっと入って15分後には食べ終わって出てくる。まさにファーストフード並のスピードだけど、丸一日かけてスープをつくったりするわけだから、作る側からすればスローフード。

Q: 博多で最初にトンコツスープの「中華そば」屋台を出した人はだれ?
A: その人の名は津田茂さん。敗戦後、大陸から引揚げてきた彼は、中国北部で覚えたトンコツスープ、「10銭そば」の味を再現させた。

Q: 100点満点のラーメンってあるの?
A: 答えはNO。というより「ラーメンはこうあるべきだ」という定義はあってないようなものだから、熱心な料理人は日夜、ベストの味を求めてラーメンづくりに励むことになる。中国の壮大な「めん料理」の歴史に比べると、まだまだ生まれたばかりのラーメン。21世紀には、どんな進化がありますやら...

参考文献
1. 「ラーメンの誕生」岡田哲 2002年 (ちくま新書)
2. 「元祖! ラーメン本」博学こだわり倶楽部[編] 1997年 (河出書房新社)

 

 

 

 

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Nuts about Noodles

Peer into any slapdash street stall that sprouts on the Tenjin sidewalks after 5 o’clock and you’ll see that folks in Fukuoka are mad about ramen. Despite the city’s plethora of fine restaurants and food shops, pinstriped bankers and chic OLs squeeze onto splintered benches to sit cheek-to-cheek with laborers, students, and shoppers to slurp down a bowl of hot noodles before heading home. Rare is the native who will not endure a long line to sample the fare at an eatery hailed by the gourmet grapevine, drop into an eye-catching shop on impulse, or savor a bowl of tonkotsu (rich pork broth) ramen after a night of drinking. No understanding of Fukuoka is complete without a taste of its unique ramen culture. Bon appetit!

From La Mian to Ramen
Ramen is Japanese food created in the Chinese style, consisting of Chinese noodles made from wheat flour, seasoned broth, and such condiments as chashu (roast pork), bean sprouts, or bamboo shoots. Yet few realize that it took 1,400 years for ramen to appear in Japan after Chinese noodle-making techniques were introduced here.

By the sixth century, the Chinese developed a technique for making long, thin noodles from wheat dough. This spread to the West, resulting in the creation of Italian pasta, and also crossed the East China Sea to Japan, where it became instrumental in creating udon, soba, somen, and, in the 20th century, ramen. The Chinese refined the technique in the 15th century by adding salt to flour and stretching the dough by hand. These noodles were called la mian–“stretched noodles”. A few centuries later, they added a natural soda to the dough before stretching it. This soda became the main ingredient of kansui, an alkaline solution of potassium and sodium carbonates for enhancing noodle texture and color.

Nowadays, most shops use commercial kansui made from chemical compounds, but some use natural ingredients from Mongolia. Though the Japanese avidly adopted this process, they wouldn’t eat the Chinese noodle dishes generously laden with pork, even after the 1,200 year ban on meat eating was lifted in the Meiji period. The Japanese shunned pork until the Taisho period vogue for Chinese food.

Turning Japanese
Chinese merchants ate noodle dishes in stalls in the Chinatown sections of Nagasaki, Kobe, and Yokohama after Japan’s national isolation ended. Japanese gradually discovered these stalls, and the trickle became a flood when they began serving noodle dishes flavored with soy sauce called nankin or shina soba.
t
Japan’s 1931 invasion of China cut short the shina soba boom, and their defeat in the ensuing war resulted in unprecedented food shortages. American wheat was easier to come by than rice. Then, in Fukuoka, a dish called Chuka soba appeared at a stall near Hakata Station. Hakatakko enthusiastically took to the new food that recreated the taste of northern Chinese dishes, as it was cheap, nutritious, and hearty.

Instant and International
When Nisshin Foods’ founder Momofuku Ando created instant chicken ramen in 1958, ramen became known throughout the country and spurred others to create their own recipes. Ando followed up with the Cup Noodle product in 1971, which became a global sensation. Ramen had suddenly become an international food.
What some consider a quickly-scarfed snack food in fact resulted from the long development of noodle cuisine in Japan.


Confessions of a Ramen Freak: Scott Newby

“I would crawl over my dead mother’s body to eat a bowl of tonkotsu ramen.”

Australian, Scott is passionate about his love for tonkotsu ramen. One rainy afternoon, a Fukuoka Now staff member accompanied Scott and his English students to chow down at one of his favorite shops, Hakata Daruma (092-761-1958).

Scott’s Ramen Rap Sheet
– Ramen for breakfast? Fine with him.
– Drank too much? Recover with tonkotsu ramen.
– Have to stand in line for an hour? No problem.
– How often? Four or five times a week.
– Where has he gone for ramen? As far as Kurume, Oita, and Kagoshima.



FN: Why do you love ramen so much?
S: Tonkotsu ramen has everything I like in food. I love salty and oily food. Itユs fast, cheap, easyノIユm lazy. Itユs just perfect for me.
FN: How do you find a good ramen shop?
S: The standard Japanese tip is “if itユs busy itユs probably good.” Usually the worse the smell, the better it is. There’s no real way to tell. If the shop smells really, really bad like old tennis shoes, the ramen is usually good. Some shops are super dirty but the taste is insane, and some shops are nice and the ramen’s horrible.
FN: Do you have any tips for foreigners who havenユt been to that many ramen shops?
S: Ignore the smell, first up. Donユt let the smell deter you from going into a shop. Ah, thatユs the hardest obstacle to overcome. Usually if I ask foreigners why they donユt eat ramen, their answer is “because it smells so bad”.
Second, you should try different shops. I’ve got a ramen guidebook I always keep in my backpack. I know dozens of shops that are just as good as most popular shops. Then if I have the time, I go looking for a good shop.

Just as we heard–the man’s crazy about ramen. The love of ramen has no borders.



Ramen Etiquette

Well, you can eat ramen whenever and however you please, but according to the Japanese Ramen Society, there is only one proper way. Nathan Wawruck, a Vancouver native and recently converted ramen freak, demonstrates how.

1. Cast an admiring glance at the ramen served to you–just for a few seconds.

2. Pick up the chopsticks and smooth everything out.

3. Rearrange the condiments to suit you, and then slurp up a mouthful of noodles and broth.

4. Take a break from the noodles to enjoy the condiments and the broth. Then, alternate among the three.

5. Dig out the remaining noodles from the bottom of the bowl and take your time with the last mouthful…”Gochisosama!”



Ramen Globalization

Where do noodles come from?
The noodles are the indispensable part of the meal. Of course, they are made primarily of flour. But only 9% of the 6.22 million tons of wheat consumed annually in Japan is grown here. Japan’s imported wheat comes from: USA (53.7%), Canada (26.8%), and Australia (19.4%), according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, 2002.

Some ramen chefs insist on noodles made only from Japanese wheat, but most use the high quality wheat grown especially in Australia for consumption as noodles in Japan. It’s likely that the thin chewy noodles Scott raves about were made with wheat grown in his homeland.

Ramen as a Global Food
Even in China, birthplace of noodle cuisine, the word ramen is synonymous with the instant variety. Throughout the USA, products such as Sapporo Ichiban’s shrimp and chicken flavored instant ramen are to be found on the shelves of supermarket and convenience stores. What`s more, Asian grocery stores in the US have a stunning variety of imported instant ramen products.

There are 54.7 billion ramen meals consumed annually throughout the world. While you thought “Made In Japan” meant compact discs, automobile technology, or Akira Kurosawa films, that honor also goes to instant ramen.

Convenience is just one reason instant ramen was accepted overseas. Another key to success was exporting the production technology and letting local companies create flavors to suit local palates. Some of you may have noticed that instant ramen soups in your home country have quite different tastes compared to the ones in Japan where there are over 800 instant ramen brands.
Top 10 Worldwide Instant Ramen Consumers

1. China: 19.1 billion
2. Indonesia: 10.9 billion
3. Japan: 5.27 billion
4. Korea: 3.65 billion
5. USA: 3.3 billion
6. Philippines: 2 billion
7. Thailand: 1.7 billion
7. Vietnam: 1.7 billion
8. Russia: 1.5 billion
9. Brazil: 1.19 billion
10. Taiwan: 940 million

<>
Data: International Ramen Manufacturers Association (2003)

________________________________________________________________

Tips on Selecting A Ramen Shop

1. A shop with a huge pot for boiling the noodles
2. Staff use a special mesh tool to scoop the boiled noodles
3. Smallish bowls, (good things come in small packages)
4. Intense ramen competition in the neighborhood
5. Smaller shops that seat about 15
6. A short and simple menu
7. A picky proprietor constantly trying to refine his distinctive flavor
8. Chefs choosy about their chashu (roast pork)
9. A shop that closes after they’re sold out of the day’s batch
10. A family operation, or one with a few part-time workers



Ramen Q & A

What! You still have questions about ramen?

Q: Do most people usually visit ramen shops alone?
A: In a recent survey, only 20% of the 20,000 respondents answered that they go alone. The average time for eating a bowl of ramen was eight minutes for women and five minutes for men. If the broth cools and the noodles get limp, forget it. Real ramen eaters don’t engage in chit chat until their bowls are empty.
Q: Ramen was originally called Nankin soba, shina soba, or chuka soba. Why was the term soba (buckwheat) used, though the noodles contained no buckwheat flour?
A: The most commonly accepted theory is that adding eggs and kansui results in noodles of a different texture than udon, and resembles soba.

Q: Why does tonkotsu ramen taste so good after a few drinks?
A: The inosinic acid in the pork luckily neutralizes the alcohol in the body.

Q: Why are Nagahama ramen noodles so thin?
A: The Hakata fish market moved to Nagahama in 1955, where Nagahama ramen was created. It was made to satisfy the needs of the busy brokers working without breaks. The thinness allowed the noodles to be boiled quickly. The market also developed the now-common practice of offering a second helping of noodles called メkaedamaモ.

Q: Is ramen fast food?
A: Granted, a customer can walk into a shop, be served a bowl of ramen, consume it, and leave in 15 minutes. Yet many shops take a full day to prepare their broth, so the term fast food is not really appropriate.

Q: In Hakata, who was the first to serve chuka soba in tonkotsu soup?
A: Shigeru Tsuda, who was repatriated to Japan from the Asian continent after the war. He tried to recreate the flavor of the 10-sen soba he ate in northern China. This was chuka soba, a tonkotsu soup with cloudy broth.

Q: Who was the first to serve chuka soba with tonkotsu soup at a yatai in Hakata?
A: Shigeru Tsuda, who was repatriated to Japan from the Asian continent after the war. He tried to recreate the flavor of the 10-sen soba he ate in northern China.

Q: What is the “perfect” ramen?
A: There is no standard definition of what ramen is supposed to be, so enthusiastic chefs devote a lot of time and energy to their own flavorful creations. Whether they serve Hakata ramen, Kurume ramen, or another variety, any 100 ramen shops will have 100 different flavors.

Information sources:
1. Okada, Tetsu Ramenno Tanjou. Tokyo: Chikuma Shinsho, 2002.
2. Hakugaku Kodawari Club. Ganso! Ramenbon Tokyo: Kawade Yume Bunko, 1997.

 

 

 

 

6647
6648

Nuts about Noodles

Peer into any slapdash street stall that sprouts on the Tenjin sidewalks after 5 o’clock and you’ll see that folks in Fukuoka are mad about ramen. Despite the city’s plethora of fine restaurants and food shops, pinstriped bankers and chic OLs squeeze onto splintered benches to sit cheek-to-cheek with laborers, students, and shoppers to slurp down a bowl of hot noodles before heading home. Rare is the native who will not endure a long line to sample the fare at an eatery hailed by the gourmet grapevine, drop into an eye-catching shop on impulse, or savor a bowl of tonkotsu (rich pork broth) ramen after a night of drinking. No understanding of Fukuoka is complete without a taste of its unique ramen culture. Bon appetit!

From La Mian to Ramen
Ramen is Japanese food created in the Chinese style, consisting of Chinese noodles made from wheat flour, seasoned broth, and such condiments as chashu (roast pork), bean sprouts, or bamboo shoots. Yet few realize that it took 1,400 years for ramen to appear in Japan after Chinese noodle-making techniques were introduced here.

By the sixth century, the Chinese developed a technique for making long, thin noodles from wheat dough. This spread to the West, resulting in the creation of Italian pasta, and also crossed the East China Sea to Japan, where it became instrumental in creating udon, soba, somen, and, in the 20th century, ramen. The Chinese refined the technique in the 15th century by adding salt to flour and stretching the dough by hand. These noodles were called la mian–“stretched noodles”. A few centuries later, they added a natural soda to the dough before stretching it. This soda became the main ingredient of kansui, an alkaline solution of potassium and sodium carbonates for enhancing noodle texture and color.

Nowadays, most shops use commercial kansui made from chemical compounds, but some use natural ingredients from Mongolia. Though the Japanese avidly adopted this process, they wouldn’t eat the Chinese noodle dishes generously laden with pork, even after the 1,200 year ban on meat eating was lifted in the Meiji period. The Japanese shunned pork until the Taisho period vogue for Chinese food.

Turning Japanese
Chinese merchants ate noodle dishes in stalls in the Chinatown sections of Nagasaki, Kobe, and Yokohama after Japan’s national isolation ended. Japanese gradually discovered these stalls, and the trickle became a flood when they began serving noodle dishes flavored with soy sauce called nankin or shina soba.
t
Japan’s 1931 invasion of China cut short the shina soba boom, and their defeat in the ensuing war resulted in unprecedented food shortages. American wheat was easier to come by than rice. Then, in Fukuoka, a dish called Chuka soba appeared at a stall near Hakata Station. Hakatakko enthusiastically took to the new food that recreated the taste of northern Chinese dishes, as it was cheap, nutritious, and hearty.

Instant and International
When Nisshin Foods’ founder Momofuku Ando created instant chicken ramen in 1958, ramen became known throughout the country and spurred others to create their own recipes. Ando followed up with the Cup Noodle product in 1971, which became a global sensation. Ramen had suddenly become an international food.
What some consider a quickly-scarfed snack food in fact resulted from the long development of noodle cuisine in Japan.


Confessions of a Ramen Freak: Scott Newby

“I would crawl over my dead mother’s body to eat a bowl of tonkotsu ramen.”

Australian, Scott is passionate about his love for tonkotsu ramen. One rainy afternoon, a Fukuoka Now staff member accompanied Scott and his English students to chow down at one of his favorite shops, Hakata Daruma (092-761-1958).

Scott’s Ramen Rap Sheet
– Ramen for breakfast? Fine with him.
– Drank too much? Recover with tonkotsu ramen.
– Have to stand in line for an hour? No problem.
– How often? Four or five times a week.
– Where has he gone for ramen? As far as Kurume, Oita, and Kagoshima.



FN: Why do you love ramen so much?
S: Tonkotsu ramen has everything I like in food. I love salty and oily food. Itユs fast, cheap, easyノIユm lazy. Itユs just perfect for me.
FN: How do you find a good ramen shop?
S: The standard Japanese tip is “if itユs busy itユs probably good.” Usually the worse the smell, the better it is. There’s no real way to tell. If the shop smells really, really bad like old tennis shoes, the ramen is usually good. Some shops are super dirty but the taste is insane, and some shops are nice and the ramen’s horrible.
FN: Do you have any tips for foreigners who havenユt been to that many ramen shops?
S: Ignore the smell, first up. Donユt let the smell deter you from going into a shop. Ah, thatユs the hardest obstacle to overcome. Usually if I ask foreigners why they donユt eat ramen, their answer is “because it smells so bad”.
Second, you should try different shops. I’ve got a ramen guidebook I always keep in my backpack. I know dozens of shops that are just as good as most popular shops. Then if I have the time, I go looking for a good shop.

Just as we heard–the man’s crazy about ramen. The love of ramen has no borders.



Ramen Etiquette

Well, you can eat ramen whenever and however you please, but according to the Japanese Ramen Society, there is only one proper way. Nathan Wawruck, a Vancouver native and recently converted ramen freak, demonstrates how.

1. Cast an admiring glance at the ramen served to you–just for a few seconds.

2. Pick up the chopsticks and smooth everything out.

3. Rearrange the condiments to suit you, and then slurp up a mouthful of noodles and broth.

4. Take a break from the noodles to enjoy the condiments and the broth. Then, alternate among the three.

5. Dig out the remaining noodles from the bottom of the bowl and take your time with the last mouthful…”Gochisosama!”



Ramen Globalization

Where do noodles come from?
The noodles are the indispensable part of the meal. Of course, they are made primarily of flour. But only 9% of the 6.22 million tons of wheat consumed annually in Japan is grown here. Japan’s imported wheat comes from: USA (53.7%), Canada (26.8%), and Australia (19.4%), according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, 2002.

Some ramen chefs insist on noodles made only from Japanese wheat, but most use the high quality wheat grown especially in Australia for consumption as noodles in Japan. It’s likely that the thin chewy noodles Scott raves about were made with wheat grown in his homeland.

Ramen as a Global Food
Even in China, birthplace of noodle cuisine, the word ramen is synonymous with the instant variety. Throughout the USA, products such as Sapporo Ichiban’s shrimp and chicken flavored instant ramen are to be found on the shelves of supermarket and convenience stores. What`s more, Asian grocery stores in the US have a stunning variety of imported instant ramen products.

There are 54.7 billion ramen meals consumed annually throughout the world. While you thought “Made In Japan” meant compact discs, automobile technology, or Akira Kurosawa films, that honor also goes to instant ramen.

Convenience is just one reason instant ramen was accepted overseas. Another key to success was exporting the production technology and letting local companies create flavors to suit local palates. Some of you may have noticed that instant ramen soups in your home country have quite different tastes compared to the ones in Japan where there are over 800 instant ramen brands.
Top 10 Worldwide Instant Ramen Consumers

1. China: 19.1 billion
2. Indonesia: 10.9 billion
3. Japan: 5.27 billion
4. Korea: 3.65 billion
5. USA: 3.3 billion
6. Philippines: 2 billion
7. Thailand: 1.7 billion
7. Vietnam: 1.7 billion
8. Russia: 1.5 billion
9. Brazil: 1.19 billion
10. Taiwan: 940 million

<>
Data: International Ramen Manufacturers Association (2003)

________________________________________________________________

Tips on Selecting A Ramen Shop

1. A shop with a huge pot for boiling the noodles
2. Staff use a special mesh tool to scoop the boiled noodles
3. Smallish bowls, (good things come in small packages)
4. Intense ramen competition in the neighborhood
5. Smaller shops that seat about 15
6. A short and simple menu
7. A picky proprietor constantly trying to refine his distinctive flavor
8. Chefs choosy about their chashu (roast pork)
9. A shop that closes after they’re sold out of the day’s batch
10. A family operation, or one with a few part-time workers



Ramen Q & A

What! You still have questions about ramen?

Q: Do most people usually visit ramen shops alone?
A: In a recent survey, only 20% of the 20,000 respondents answered that they go alone. The average time for eating a bowl of ramen was eight minutes for women and five minutes for men. If the broth cools and the noodles get limp, forget it. Real ramen eaters don’t engage in chit chat until their bowls are empty.
Q: Ramen was originally called Nankin soba, shina soba, or chuka soba. Why was the term soba (buckwheat) used, though the noodles contained no buckwheat flour?
A: The most commonly accepted theory is that adding eggs and kansui results in noodles of a different texture than udon, and resembles soba.

Q: Why does tonkotsu ramen taste so good after a few drinks?
A: The inosinic acid in the pork luckily neutralizes the alcohol in the body.

Q: Why are Nagahama ramen noodles so thin?
A: The Hakata fish market moved to Nagahama in 1955, where Nagahama ramen was created. It was made to satisfy the needs of the busy brokers working without breaks. The thinness allowed the noodles to be boiled quickly. The market also developed the now-common practice of offering a second helping of noodles called メkaedamaモ.

Q: Is ramen fast food?
A: Granted, a customer can walk into a shop, be served a bowl of ramen, consume it, and leave in 15 minutes. Yet many shops take a full day to prepare their broth, so the term fast food is not really appropriate.

Q: In Hakata, who was the first to serve chuka soba in tonkotsu soup?
A: Shigeru Tsuda, who was repatriated to Japan from the Asian continent after the war. He tried to recreate the flavor of the 10-sen soba he ate in northern China. This was chuka soba, a tonkotsu soup with cloudy broth.

Q: Who was the first to serve chuka soba with tonkotsu soup at a yatai in Hakata?
A: Shigeru Tsuda, who was repatriated to Japan from the Asian continent after the war. He tried to recreate the flavor of the 10-sen soba he ate in northern China.

Q: What is the “perfect” ramen?
A: There is no standard definition of what ramen is supposed to be, so enthusiastic chefs devote a lot of time and energy to their own flavorful creations. Whether they serve Hakata ramen, Kurume ramen, or another variety, any 100 ramen shops will have 100 different flavors.

Information sources:
1. Okada, Tetsu Ramenno Tanjou. Tokyo: Chikuma Shinsho, 2002.
2. Hakugaku Kodawari Club. Ganso! Ramenbon Tokyo: Kawade Yume Bunko, 1997.

 

 

 

 

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