Ramen (ラーメン), which is pronounced "Ramion" in Korean and "Lo Mein" in Chinese, comes from the compound characters 撈麵 (in Cantonese) that stand for "stirred" and "noodles." In Japan where I grew up, I had the genuine Japanese version of the dish years before I ran into the instant "Oodles-of-Noodles" stuff that has the nutritional equivalent of cardboard. (To be fair, it will do in a pinch as a comfort food, if prepared right -- which I say only because I knew a student at Chapel Hill who would pull the dry noodles out of the plastic wrap and spread peanut butter on it, which is definitely not right.) When I was in junior high school in Sapporo, we could put in an order for Ramen for lunch and have it delivered to us at our school for exactly 60 yen (when the exchange rate was $1.00 US Dollar = 360.00 Japanese Yen); and a bowl of "Soba" (buckwheat noodles) or "Udon" (fat, flat bleached wheat noodles) was only 40 yen. But that's all ancient history.It was with a pang of nostalgia, then, that I read the "Ramen Adventures" (New York Times, January 29, 2010) diary of a blogger helping the Frugal Traveler, Matt Gross, with an article he was writing (Christopher Blosser had sent me an email with the link). The photos and descriptions were more than enough to get my mouth watering, as would be case too, I'm sure, for any Japanese expatriate in this country. Have a look. If you like Vietnamese Pho, this is a distant cousin, and one well worth getting to know.
If you enjoy this Ramen genera, there
is a movie you are sure to enjoy if you haven't already seen it, called "Tampopo"(タンポポ, literally "dandelion"), a 1985 Japanese comedy film by director Juzo Itami, starring Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto and Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai, Memoirs of a Geisha), sportingly referred by publicity as the first Japanese noodle Western. The story centers on two truck drivers happening into a roadside Ramen shop, getting into a fight, then helping the proprietress turn her shop, which isn't doing too well, into the Grand Ramen-Daddy of noodle shops. Somewhat in the manner of Like Water for Chocolate or Mostly Martha, the narrative focuses on the subtleties of delectable culinary delights with a tease of romance in the subscript.[Hat tip to C.B.]
Ramen--
ReplyDeleteAmong the little things in life that make the time pass more comfortably, along with varieties of shumai (esp. with shrimp).
Ahhhhh. A post in need of clipping and saving.
So... what is the "proper way" to prepare the block of noodles and packet of flavoring found at most US supermarkets?
ReplyDeleteDang Ramen Catholics...
ReplyDeleteHey, better a Ramen Catholic than a Cafeteria Catholic, by gum!
ReplyDeleteLutheran, I also go in for shumai; but my favorite Japanese import from the Middle Kingdom of China is probably gyoza, which the Japanese (IMHO) have perfected -- not so thick-skinned as their Chinese cousin, and not merely steamed, as their Cantonese sisters, but lightly crisped with an incredible dipping sauce.
Anon, so what's the "proper way" to prepare the instant packets? There are a variety of really neat things you can do. Basics first. After boiling for about two or three minutes (before noodles turn soft), drain and add fresh water and re-heat, to get rid of the palm oil grease in the noodles. Put powdered flavoring into empty noodle bowl, add noodles with boiling water into bowl.
Then, one thing you can do is to simply add a raw egg to the completed assembly, which is called a tamago-ramen. Quite good, and adds nutrition as well.
Another is halving the powdered flavoring and adding some miso with a bit of dashi. Here you can throw in just about anything else but the kitchen sink here, as long as its reasonable -- cooked corn, a couple slices of fried bacon or beef or chicken -- as long as its not too much; even a few shakes of some nori-furikake adds an exquisite touch.
For a very different product, you can prepare the noodles as above, but skip the flavoring packet altogether. At the point where you drain the noodles, you transfer them to a non-stick frying pan with a bit of oil, add a bit of mirin and/or sugar, soy sauce, and a dash of rice vinegar, and fry up the noodles, which gives you a close approximation to yaki-soba. (You may add a small amount of friend onions, garlic and tiny julienne-sliced carrots if you wish.)
Those are some ideas for starters. If you want to get carried away, you can tempura-fry jumbo shrimp and place the splayed shrimp atop the ramen before serving. But at this point, if you're investing in shrimp, you may as well forget the instant ramen and go for the real thing. You can get proper ramen noodles at a decent Japanese grocer.
Wonderful reply! I look forward to giving some of these a go!
ReplyDeleteOh for a taste of niku manju!
ReplyDeleteNiku manju, An man, either would be find with me on a cold winter's day! Or just lunch in a Ramen-ya.
ReplyDeleteHaha. Oh, the joys of Ramen noodles.
ReplyDeleteThere is a specific type of chemical spectroscopy called Raman (named after the guy who invented it) and one of my professors always iterated that it was the "inedible one". While in college, I got into the habit of eating the noodles raw... very crunchy!