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ramenrambles · 3 years ago

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Why Ramen

Another day, another note. Much of what is detailed below are basically notes summarised from George Solt’s wonderful book The Untold History of Ramen (2014). Highly recommended resource! Ok, this is gonna be a long one..

(credit: UC Press)

PART TWO of three A Brief History of Ramen

What’s in a name? To start, we should note that “ramen” (ラーメン) is known by many names throughout shops in Japan’s history.

Historically speaking, this bowl of noodles and soup was really only known as “ramen” in recent decades. Prior to that, it had a much longer history where it was known as either “Shina soba” (支那そば) or “Chuka soba” (中華そば). And interestingly enough, these terms are also a reflection of Japan’s changing relationship to China.

Even before the 19th Century, “Shina soba” was used to describe noodle soups that were derived mainly from Chinese techniques of boiling animal parts in their soup. The need to categorise it as “Shina soba” (or sometimes as “Nankin soba”) introduces and emphasises a marked difference (then) from the traditions of Japanese wa-dashi, which was and continues to be primarily made by steeping kelp and dried fish.

However, by the end of World War II, with memories of Japan’s military expansionism and war crimes still fresh in the minds of many Chinese, the term “Shina” was deemed a derogatory one -- since it was also a Japanese transliteration of Cina / China. Hence, by the time we got to the early 1950s, most shops in Japan adopted the term “Chuka soba” instead, noting China’s identity as the middle kingdom.

Very quickly though, things turned political once more in 1958, when Nissin invented the now-famous instant noodle soup. Nissin’s founder, Ando Momofuku, was ethnically a Taiwanese and hence he preferred to dissociate the dish from a China which was run by the communist party in power. Hence, the instant noodle soup was marketed instead as “ramen” as a Japanese transliteration of “la mian” (拉面). In that sense, even when we use the term “ramen” today, we are speaking simply of the five components (soup, noodles, tare, oil, toppings) that make up a bowl, but also this broader history of geopolitics and changing diets. In other words, the foodways of ramen: why ramen was eaten, how it came to be and why. To understand this better, it helps to look at three origin points of ramen: ORIGIN ONE c.1660s: Chinese Approaches to Soups Tokugawa Mitsukuni, a feudal lord of Tokugawa Japan, had a Chinese adviser by the name of Zhu Shunshui. Zhu was essentially a scholar of Confucianism but also a political refugee from Ming China who enjoyed a close relationship to his overlord. Noting Tokugawa Mitsukuni’s preference for udon soup, Zhu proceeded to recommend five additional ingredients commonly used in Chinese soups: onions, garlic, garlic chives, green onion and ginger. Today, we tend to treat these ingredients as “aromatics” that we add to the ramen broth, usually at the last hour of simmering, or something we add into the braising liquid for chashu to help mask the funk that comes with certain animal parts. This is often done today without any hesitation or thought that these “aromatics” were not considered a part of Japanese cooking traditions until the 17th century.

(credit: matcha.jp)

On the surface, this historical moment doesn’t seem like much, given how far away it seems from the eventual bowl of ramen that we recognise today. But it is worth pointing out that the Ramen Museum, which is located in Yokohama (an area known for having the largest Chinatown in the whole of Japan), chooses to emphasise this as one of ramen’s origin points. This places, in other words, an importance in feudal Japan’s admiration for pre-Qing China, for its vast archives of knowledge and wisdom gathered not only in statecraft and governance, but also in the culinary arts.

ORIGIN TWO c.1853–1884: Changing Appetites in Japan The second origin point for ramen takes place some time during the Meiji Restoration, after Commodore Perry’s gunboat diplomacy forced the Tokugawa Shogunate to open Japan up for trade. Casting aside the usual caricature of Tokugawa Japan as a period of isolation for now, it is nonetheless interesting to note that the ensuing influx of foreign traders into Japan saw a rise of local restaurants spring up in order to cater to the appetites of their new visitors. Here, in the Yoshokuyas (”Western restaurants”) everything from European, American and Chinese cuisine were served under one roof. In many ways, the dishes offered were very much domesticated versions, as interpreted and filtered through Japanese ingredients and techniques. But one particular dish called “Nankin soba” (named so after the capital of Nanjing) were served in many of these Yoshokuyas. Seen from today’s perspective and ramen nomenclature, Nankin sobas were mostly pork or chicken chintans served with a shio tare and topped off simply with chopped scallions.

Nankin sobas, by today’s standards, do not seem to offer much beyond a very basic bowl of ramen. Historically, however, they are crucial as popular dishes that marked Japan’s slow acceptance and metabolism of Chinese-style animal-base soups. At the same time, it is important too to note that the Meiji Revolution was conducted with the eventual lifting of an earlier ban on red meats as enforced by the Tokugawa Shogunate. In fact, the lifting of such a ban simultaneously also opened up modern Japan’s appetite for foreign cuisines and diets, something that was seen as necessary in order for the Japanese to develop and match the bigger physique of their new visitors. In essence, the Meiji government had hoped that changing and expanding Japan’s diet would lead, hopefully, to Japan catching up and becoming like the West. Not surprisingly, it is also the period in which many of Japan’s brightest were then sent overseas in order to learn from the West. Eventually, this ingestion and incorporation of foreign ideas and foreign diets would lead to Japan’s own appetite for an imperialist expansion. Put differently, it’s important to rethink Nankin Soba’s appearance between the 1850s and 1880s in relation to these larger contexts, and how it potentially fuelled Japan towards its victories in the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and then later during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). Nankin Soba’s resemblance to a contemporary bowl of ramen is undoubted, though it was very much a shime or closing side dish served in Yoshokuyas rather than a main course or a complete meal in itself. Yet, it’s personally for me the most interesting origin point for ramen given its broader historical contexts.

ORIGIN THREE c.1910s: Ramen as a Complete (Japanese) Dish Five years after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, in 1910, a civil servant by the name of Ozaki Kenichi left his job to open up a Chinese (Shinashoku) restaurant called Rai Rai Ken, in the working-class neighbourhood of Asakusa in Tokyo. Rai Rai Ken served their noodles soup differently however, offering a much more substantial bowl than a standard Nankin Soba. Depending on which account, Rai Rai Ken’s Shina Soba came with menma (bamboo shoots), pork chashu, boiled spinach, naruto (fish cake), nori (seaweed) and green scallions. But perhaps the most important addition was the use of shoyu (soy sauce) which helped tamper the gamey taste of Nankin soba’s animal-based soup. Ozaki’s noodle soup, or “Shina soba” as it was termed in his shop, was very much modified to suit the broader Japanese audience, including a familiar element that helped in many ways to further domesticate a bowl of Nankin soba.

(credit: Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum)

Such a substantial bowl of noodle soup also meant that Shina soba became less of a side dish and more of a hearty complete meal in itself, served out in a restaurant setting that did not emphasise the dish’s foreignness (as was the case of Nankin sobas served in Yoshokuyas) but rather aimed to further domesticate the dish for the Japanese palette. For these reasons, Rai Rai Ken and Ozaki Kenichi’s Shina soba is often seen as the precursor to the ramen we recognise today. Something that is a substantial bowl of noodle soup, and something substantially Japanese. (Compare this, after all, to the Nankin sobas which were cooked by immigrant Chinese chefs coming into Meiji Japan, and were served mainly to Chinese students.)

Among the present-day ramen community, it’s not hard to see why Rai Rai Ken gets an inordinate amount of attention in the history of ramen. There’s a certain “punk rock” appeal or romanticisation here: that of a salaryman quitting the rat race in order to feed his hungry community, and modifying a dish to such a popular success that it enters into the Japanese culinary repertoire. Of course, it also helps that there was, in 2020, an attempt to revive Rai Rai Ken at the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum, recreated based on the memories of Ozaki Kenichi’s grandson (Kunio Takahashi).

(credit: SoraNews24)

1945 onwards : Postwar Emergence of Ramen During WWII, as part of an effort to reserve resources for its expanding military, a rationing system was put in place by the Japanese imperial government. After the war, however, during the American occupation of Japan (1945-1952), the government in postwar Japan managed to retain its rationing system in light of an impoverished nation. Yet, American intelligence feared that the frustrations of an impoverished nation would soon lead to violent uprisings in Japan. Hence, food aid to Japan came largely in the form of imported American wheat, even as the incumbent government made simultaneous efforts to crack down on an illegal black market that developed as a result of the rationing system.

Here, it is also crucial to point out that the Japanese diet, at this point, remained largely based on rice as a staple rather than wheat. But this influx of wheat into Japan led, eventually, to the emergence of ramen as a substantial bowl of noodle soup to feed a starving nation. The resulting proliferation of ramen yatais (push carts) hawking bowls after bowls of ramen made the Japanese government, however, anxious that the wheat procured by these ramen yatais were obtained via illegal means. Hence, it was not uncommon to see ramen hawkers being arrested for grounds of suspicion.

Nonetheless, ramen’s sheer ubiquity during the postwar decades meant that many of the labourers working on the rebuilding of Japan were fed on bowls after bowls of hearty noodle soup. That is to say, Japan’s postwar economic recovery was by and large fuelled by ramen, turning ramen into a symbol of the working class.

(I’ll skip the history here, of the development of regional variations (e.g. Hakata Tonkotsu ramen, Sapporo Miso ramen, Kitakata Shoyu ramen), except to note that these variations only developed in the recent decades – and as part of local prefectures developing unique ramens to promote domestic tourism during the boom years of Japan’s bubble economy.)

Perhaps it remains just that for many in Japan, ramen – a symbol of the working class who built up Japan. For many who remain insistent on this symbolism of ramen, the new wave of gourmet and refined ramen do not qualify as ramen in spirit. Especially when most of these bowls now cost an upwards of 1000yen, and start to incorporate many foreign ingredients (e.g. truffle oil) or foreign techniques (e.g. sous vide). We have to understand this symbolism of ramen essentially as a kind of postwar nationalisation of the dish. It still is possible to find bowls of old school ramen shops serving out bowls to feed hungry and less well-to-do labourers in Japan. Nonetheless, ramen has, in the last decade or so, become somewhat elevated as a Japanese dish, making it into Michelin guides and having its own media industry – e.g. ramen magazines like TRY (Tokyo Ramen of the Year).

Interestingly too, there remains shops that term their own bowl of noodle soup differently, preferring to use “Chuka soba” (e.g. many old school shops selling shoyu chintan bowls) or sometimes even “Shina soba” (as did Sano Minoru with his shop Shinasobaya) or “Japanese soba” (as termed by Michelin-starred Tsuta). For me, these are all fascinating case studies in themselves to think through what exactly is, or was, ramen.

To conclude, it should be said that the three originary points offered are not meant to point to some definitive history of ramen. Rather, as George Solt himself puts it as a historian, choosing to emphasise or anchor ramen’s history in either of these reflects much more about our present times and/or relationship to ramen, Japan, China, or Japan’s relationship to China.

Reference George Solt, The Untold History of Ramen: How political crisis in Japan spawned a global food craze (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014).

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thatsnotcanonpodcasts · 6 years ago

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SpaceX, Game of Thrones & Anthem

In this latest marvellous and riveting episode we are going to first travel into the cold, quiet and overcrowded outer space. That’s right, we are going into earth orbit and visiting the ISS (International Space Station) where Space X has just docked the new Dragon Capsule. This is the next step in a flight to the moon in 2023, still trying to get a ticket if anyone has one. The capsule was only a test with a dummy aboard, and no, not Trump. Next up is the fast approaching final season of Game of Thrones – season 8 – with what is looking like a record breaking battle scene that took weeks to film. This is expected to be more epic than Helms Deep, even the extended edition. Then we look at the fact that Anthem is hard crashing consoles and systems around the world. Cue the music “Queen – Another One Bites The Dust.” That’s right folks, EA has struck again, and this time it gets personal with systems and consoles being bricked by this latest screw up. There is mention of compensation floating around, so hopefully word will spread before too many systems are wrecked. Then we have the games of the week, the weekly shout outs, birthdays, remembrances and events of interest from this week in history. As always we would welcome any feedback, suggestions or whatever. Until next week, stay safe, look out for each other and stay hydrated.

EPISODE NOTES:

SpaceX Docking - https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/hard-capture-is-complete-spacex-capsule-docks-with-international-space-station/news-story/570efb7ec61650520a5ccef2732229db

Game of Thrones Season 8 - https://bgr.com/2019/03/04/game-of-thrones-season-8-spoilers-the-battle-of-winterfell-detailed/

Anthem shuts consoles down - https://twistedvoxel.com/anthem-full-system-level-crashes-refund/

Games Currently playing

Buck

– Skyrim - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - https://store.steampowered.com/app/72850/The_Elder_Scrolls_V_Skyrim/

– Apex Legends - https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends

Professor

– Tetris 99 - https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/tetris-99-switch

Other topics Discussed

Soyuz (Russian spacecraft)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_(spacecraft)

Soyuz Space Crew Launch Failure 2018

- https://www.space.com/42117-soyuz-abort-crew-launch-failure-2018-coverage.html

Trump congratulating SpaceX

- https://www.space.com/trump-hails-spacex-crew-dragon-success.html

Trump’s Apple Blunder

- https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/donald-trump-makes-awkward-blunder-with-apple-ceos-name/video/971ea09386b95981d3cfe0c6396000f8?nk=566c96d427a8dc7faa082c6bd4a1a92c-1551954567

- https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/06/president-trump-calls-apple-ceo-tim-apple-instead-of-tim-cook.html

NASA leadership

- https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-leadership/

Delta-v (change in velocity)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v

US Army’s No Kill AI Public Relations move

- https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2019/03/us-army-assures-public-that-robot-tank-system-adheres-to-ai-murder-policy/

Blue Origin Grasshopper rockets

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasshopper_(rocket)

- https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/24/9793220/blue-origin-vs-spacex-rocket-landing-jeff-bezos-elon-musk

Space industry in South Australia

- https://www.spaceconnectonline.com.au/launch/2116-south-australia-uniting-space-industry-for-crc

How Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen are related

- https://www.thisisinsider.com/game-of-thrones-jon-snow-and-daenerys-targaryen-related-aunt-nephew-2017-3

Walking 10,000 steps per day

- https://www.livescience.com/43956-walking-10000-steps-healthy.html

Comparisons between Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Battle of Helm’s Deep and Games of Thrones Battle of Winterfell

- http://www.darkhorizons.com/thrones-final-battle-to-outdo-helms-deep/

Mass Effect 3 (2012 video game)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect_3

Brain Bug (Starship Troopers Arachnid)

- https://starshiptroopers.fandom.com/wiki/Brain_Bug

Windows 98 rollover bug

- https://www.cnet.com/news/date-rollover-bug-in-windows-98/

Anthem Demo problems

- https://www.polygon.com/2019/1/27/18199405/anthem-vip-demo-down-bioware-fix-infinite-loading-errors-pc-ps4-xbox-one

Uhtred (Last Kingdom character)

- https://the-last-kingdom.fandom.com/wiki/Uhtred

Hidden chamber found under the Great Pyramid of Giza

- https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/archaeology/scientists-discover-hidden-chamber-in-the-great-pyramid-of-giza/news-story/d6afdc5ca473b80f9eee689b19b1f3e1

Shoutouts

4 Mar 2019 - Playstation 2 turns 19 - https://www.siliconera.com/2019/03/04/playstation-2-celebrates-its-19th-birthday-today-what-were-your-favorite-ps2-games/

4 Mar 2019 – John Candy died 25 years ago - https://www.thespec.com/whatson-story/9202816-john-candy-s-enduring-legacy-25-years-after-his-death/

5 Mar 1558 - Smoking tobacco introduced into Europe by Spanish physician Francisco Fernandes - http://www.stevenlberg.info/today/1876

5 Mar 1953 - Mass Murderer Stalin Goes to His Grave - https://www.onthisday.com/articles/mass-murderer-stalin-goes-to-his-grave

Remembrances

4 Mar 2019 – Luke Perry, American actor who played as Dylan McKay on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210 from 1990 to 1995, and again from 1998 to 2000. He also starred as Fred Andrews on the CW series Riverdale and had guest roles on notable shows such as Criminal Minds, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Simpsons, and Will & Grace. He died of a stroke at 52 in Burbank, California - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Perry

4 Mar 2019 - Christopher Alan Pallies, American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, King Kong Bundy. He is best known for his appearances in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Bundy wrestled in the main event of WrestleMania 2 in 1986, facing Hulk Hogan in a steel cage match for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship. While there is no official cause of death, he died in Glassboro, New Jersey at 61 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_Bundy

4 Mar 2019 – Keith Flint, English vocalist and dancer most associated with the electronic dance act The Prodigy. Starting out as a dancer, he became the frontman of the group and performed on the group's two UK number one singles, "Firestarter" and "Breathe" both released in 1996. He took his own life at 49 in Great Dunmow, Essex - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Flint

5 Mar 1827 - Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta, Italianphysicist,chemist, and a pioneer of electricity and power, who is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the discoverer of methane. He invented the Voltaic pile in 1799, and reported the results of his experiments in 1800 in a two-part letter to the President of the Royal Society. With this invention Volta proved that electricity could be generated chemically and debunked the prevalent theory that electricity was generated solely by living beings. Volta's invention sparked a great amount of scientific excitement and led others to conduct similar experiments which eventually led to the development of the field of electrochemistry. The SI unit of electric potential is named in his honour as the volt. He died at 82 in Como, Lombardy-Venetia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Volta

Famous Birthdays

5 Mar 1910 - Momofuku Ando, Taiwanese-Japanese inventor and businessman born in Imperial Japanese Taiwan who founded Nissin Food Products Co., Ltd.. He is known as the inventor of instant noodles and the creator of the brands, Top Ramen and Cup Noodles. Born in Japanese Taiwan, Empire of Japan (now Puzi,Chiayi County,Taiwan,Republic of China) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momofuku_Ando

5 Mar 1934 - Daniel Kahneman,Israeli-American psychologist and economist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, as well as behavioural economics, for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with Vernon L. Smith). His empirical findings challenge the assumption of human rationality prevailing in modern economic theory. Born in Mandatory Palestine -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman

5 Mar 1974 – Eva Mendes, American actress, model and businesswoman. Her acting career began in the late 1990s, with a series of roles in B films such as Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998) and Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000). Mendes's performance in Training Day (2001) marked a turning point in her career, and led to parts in the commercially successful films 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) and Hitch (2005), the latter of which made her one of the first minority actors to play the lead in a mainstream romantic comedy. She starred in Ghost Rider (2007) and The Spirit (2008), both film adaptations of comics, and ventured into more dramatic territory with We Own the Night (2007), Bad Lieutenant (2009), Last Night (2010), and The Place Beyond the Pines (2012). Mendes has appeared in several music videos for artists like Will Smith, and has also been an ambassador for brands, including Calvin Klein,Cartier,Reebok,Pantene shampoo, Morgan, and Peek & Cloppenburg. She has designed for New York & Company and is the creative director of CIRCA Beauty, a makeup line sold at Walgreens. Born in Miami, Florida - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Mendes

6 Mar 1966 - Alan Davies, English stand-up comedian, writer and actor. He has played the title role in the BBC mystery drama series Jonathan Creek since 1997, and has been the only permanent panellist on the BBC panel show QI since 2003, outlasting hosts Stephen Fry (2003–16) and Sandi Toksvig (2016–present) who took over after Fry's exit. Born in Loughton, Essex - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Davies

Events of Interest

5 Mar 1872 – George Westinghouse Jr patents the railway air brake.

-http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/p/120861/1378079.aspx

-http://www.patent-invent.com/air_brake_patent.html

-http://www.freepatentsonline.com/124405.pdf

5 Mar 1904 - Nikola Tesla describes the process of the ball lightning formation in Electrical World and Engineer - https://www.wired.com/2010/03/0305tesla-ball-lightning/

5 Mar 1975 - Homebrew Computer Club is established in a Silicon Valley garage. From its ranks will emerge industry pioneers like Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and hacker John Draper, aka Captain Crunch.

- https://www.wired.com/2009/03/march-5-1975-a-whiff-of-homebrew-excites-the-valley-2/

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebrew_Computer_Club

5 Mar 1979 – NASA’s Voyager 1 makes its closest approach to Jupiter coming within 172,000 miles of the planet’s surface. - https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4408335/Voyager-1-makes-closest-approach-to-Jupiter--March-5-1979

5 Mar 1981 – The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, is launched by Sinclair Research and would go on to sell over 1.5 million units around the world. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81

Intro

Artist – Goblins from Mars

Song Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)

Song Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNMe6kF0j0&index=4&list=PLHmTsVREU3Ar1AJWkimkl6Pux3R5PB-QJ

Email - [email protected]

Twitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamated

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6Nux69rftdBeeEXwD8GXrS

iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094

RSS - http://www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com/topshelfnerdspodcast?format=rss

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