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拉面. Lāmiàn
拉麺. Ramen.
라면. Ramyeon.
Ramen establishes an ancient history and an aromatic presence in Asia, most prominently in China, Japan, and Korea.
Ramen derived its roots in nineteenth century Chinese noodle dishes. After Chinese immigrants arrived in Japan after the Meiji Restoration (~1868), noodle stands flourished most notably in Yokohama Chinatown. Rairaiken (来々軒) in Asakusa, Tokyo is recognized as the first ramen shop, bringing in twelve Chinese cooks from the Yokohama area to properly serve Japanese customers.
Towards the end of World War Two, Japan’s rice harvest deteriorated drastically. In order to help Japan, the US imported mass amounts of wheat into the Japanese market, leading to the increase of bread and noodle consumption. The US also helped Japan ban outdoor food vending. Therefore, gangster groups, called yakuza, would always control flour production by transporting flour from mills to the black markets. Many of the Japanese people survived the war by eating in illegal black market ramen stalls and restaurants. Fall of 1945 had Tokyo alone swamped in 45,000 black market stalls. These black markets would then sell ramen for cheap prices, due to mass imports of wheat and lard, and then the money would go to the yakuza, who used it for protection money. The police arrested thousands of ramen vendors, and it was not until 1950 that food restrictions were relaxed and ramen vendors popped up all over Japan. During these times, the artistry of ramen established itself all over the nation, and locations called yatai would include the whole package with seats, tables, bowls, chopsticks, and of course, the noodles, toppings, and broth.
Then came 1958, the advent of instant ramen. Momofuku Ando, a Taiwanese-Japanese businessman, revolutionized ramen culture by making ramen accessible to everyone, creating a version of ramen that only required consumers to add boiled water to their plastic cup to eat the mouthwatering noodles.
Ramen did not enter Korea until 1963, when Samyang Noodles created their own form of instant noodles, Korean style. They were sold for very cheap, around to help the Korean commoners, due to the extreme poverty after the Korean War. In 2017, Korea led with the highest number of ramen servings in the world, with 73.4 million servings, Vietnam coming in second with 53.5 million and Nepal coming in third with 51.3 million.
Types of ramen vary all across Asia, different regions having different flavored broth and different meats and toppings in the dish. Organized by base flavor, there are different kinds of ramen broth: shio with salt as the base, coming from the city of Hakodate; shoyu with soy sauce as the base, coming from Rairaiken; the first ramen shop; miso with soybean paste as the base, coming from the Hokkaido prefecture; and tonkotsu with pork bone as the base, coming from the Fukuoka prefecture. The Japanese will also put all sorts of vegetables and meat and toppings in the ramen: green onion, boiled eggs, mustard leaves, beans, bamboo mushrooms, corn, shrimp, squid, braised beef cubes, pork cutlets, and more.
Today, ramen has reached the entire world with its addictive flavors. Anyone can simply pour in boiling water into the paper cup, add the packet of powder, wait three minutes, and… you’re done. Enjoy your meal!
(article by Olivia Kong)
