We shall miss you, Mr. Momofuku Ando. The inventor of instant noodles passed away, aged 96.

This high sodium, low fiber food holds a strategic spot in my memory. It instantly evokes memories of misery, solitude, friendship, inspiration, intoxication.

It is a good dinner for poor college students. It prevents hangover after heavy drinking. It soothes the mind at dawn, exhausted after a night of work. It promotes comradeship, when 4 hungry roomates share 1 cup noodles. It tastes good.

Like wine, truffles, oyster, and cigar, an appreciation of its quality needs to be acquired, through a sharpened sense of taste and countless years of slurping —

What is the texture of the noodles? How complex are the flavours of the soup base? Quality of the sesame oil? Quality of dried vegetables and seafood? Is the MSG too overwhelming? Are the plastic packages easy to open? How gratifying is the after-taste?

However, Mr Ando drew his Cup Noodle inspiration from black market stalls, where he saw people queue to buy bowls of hot ramen during the hard times after World War II.

Times have changed. Nowadays you can find the premium instant noodles sell for more than the price of one whole rotisserie chicken.

It would be a poetic vision to juxtapose the different flavours of instant noodles with the ups and downs of a man or a society.

Posted on January 19th, 2007  | RSS 2.0 |  Trackback |