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