Today is the 50th anniversary of the day instant ramen went on sale in Japan - August 25th, 1958. You may remember January of 2007 when the creator of this delicious treat, Momofuku Ando, passed away and was given a huge send-off - Yasuhiro Nakasone, former Prime Minister of Japan, even delivered the eulogy at his funeral!

This meal, sometimes the only nutrition we can manage in between bouts of anime marathons at our computer desks, is easy to take for granted; it’s easy, cheap, and has always been around (sorry to our 50+ year old readers). So, I decided to do a bit of research on this subject, and thought you might be interested in what I found out!

“Ramen art.”

I pulled this brief history from the Ramen History page at the Insant Ramen Homepage:

The Japanese have always loved to eat noodles and invented many unique varieties of their own, such as soba (thin, buckwheat noodles) and udon (thick wheat noodles). The history of instant noodles begins in the years after the Second World War: a time of intense food shortages in Japan. Inexpensive and full of needed calories, ramen (thin Chinese-style vermicelli noodles served in soup) became widely popular and long lines of hungry diners outside noodle shops and street food stands were a common sight. Obviously, what was needed was a tasty, safe and non-perishable type of ramen that could easily be cooked at home.

Enter Chicken Ramen, a brand of flavored instant noodles sold under the slogan “Just add hot water and wait 2 minutes.” The Japanese in the late fifties were so impressed by the new food that they nicknamed it “miracle ramen”. Before Chicken Ramen, this type of noodle had been called Chinese soba, but the runaway success of this brand made ramen into a household word.

The first ramen ever marketed: Chikin Ramen.

I also found that in a year 2000 poll, Japanese people voted instant ramen as the best invention of the 20th century! (it was followed in second by the kareoke machine ) Perhaps most surprisingly, I learned that its original price point was 6 to 7 times that of regular soba or udon, making it very much a luxury good in post-WW2 Japan.

After the death of creator Momofuku Ando, a museum was created in Osaka that shows how he developed the noodles, and how they have changed over the years. Momofuku, an immigrant from Taiwan, got off to a false start when he was imprisoned in 1948 for tax evasion, but he never let that stop him. He continued trying for his vision and finally achieved success at an age when most people are fully established in their fields, prompting him to later quote “I invented instant ramen when I was 48 and Cup Noodles at 61. In life, there is no such thing as too late.”

“Peace will come to the world when the people have enough to eat.”

So, whether you deck your ramen out to the max with veggies, meat, and whatever else, eat it simply with the flavor pack, or are somewhere in the middle like me (I usually just poach an egg in it), take a brief moment today to reflect on this amazing invention and celebrate its 50 years in existence!

Momofuku enjoying some of his creation.

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