Who invented instant noodles? Instant noodles First instant noodles
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dried vegetables;
pieces of meat
Instant noodles (ramen, ramen)- specially processed (for example, fried in oil) dry noodles, for the preparation of which it is enough to add hot water and the supplied seasonings. The product is cheap and easy to prepare, making it one of the most popular trending foods in the world.
Story
The father of modern instant noodles is considered to be a Japanese of Taiwanese origin, Momofuku Ando, who founded Nissin Food Products Co., Ltd and organized the world's first noodle production Chikin Ramen(chicken flavor) in 1958. On August 25, 1958, a new product appeared on the Japanese grocery market.
Another important milestone in this area is the introduction of instant noodles in a foam cup “Cup Noodle” by Nissin in 1971. It can be prepared without using any utensils right in this cup. Subsequently, dried vegetables were added to the cup, which makes the dish a soup.
Consumption
In 2009, more than 92 billion servings of instant noodles were sold worldwide.
Instant noodle consumption may be an economic indicator. In 2005, Thailand began publishing the Mama Noodles Index - showing the consumption of Mama Noodles, a local variety of instant noodles. The index has been constant during the economic recovery from the East Asian Economic Crisis. People cannot afford more expensive products, which leads to increased consumption of noodles.
- When calculating the cost per kilogram of product, even the most inexpensive instant noodles are significantly more expensive than most traditional (requiring longer heat treatment) premium pasta.
- Monosodium glutamate and other food additives are commonly added to instant noodles to improve taste.
- In South Korea, instant noodles are also common and are called “ramyeon” (Korean: 라면).
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Excerpt characterizing Instant Noodles
- No, killing a person is not good, it’s unfair...- Why is it unfair? - repeated Prince Andrei; what is just and unjust is not given to people to judge. People have always been mistaken and will continue to be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider just and unjust.
“It is unfair that there is evil for another person,” said Pierre, feeling with pleasure that for the first time since his arrival, Prince Andrei became animated and began to speak and wanted to express everything that made him what he was now.
– Who told you what evil is for another person? - he asked.
- Evil? Evil? - said Pierre, - we all know what evil is for ourselves.
“Yes, we know, but the evil that I know for myself, I cannot do to another person,” Prince Andrei said more and more animatedly, apparently wanting to express to Pierre his new view of things. He spoke French. Je ne connais l dans la vie que deux maux bien reels: c"est le remord et la maladie. II n"est de bien que l"absence de ces maux. [I know in life only two real misfortunes: remorse and illness. And the only good is the absence of these evils.] To live for yourself, avoiding only these two evils: that is all my wisdom now.
– What about love for one’s neighbor, and self-sacrifice? - Pierre spoke. - No, I cannot agree with you! To live only in such a way as not to do evil, so as not to repent? this is not enough. I lived like this, I lived for myself and ruined my life. And only now, when I live, at least try (Pierre corrected himself out of modesty) to live for others, only now I understand all the happiness of life. No, I don’t agree with you, and you don’t mean what you say.
Prince Andrei silently looked at Pierre and smiled mockingly.
“You’ll see your sister, Princess Marya.” You’ll get along with her,” he said. “Maybe you’re right for yourself,” he continued, after a short silence; - but everyone lives in their own way: you lived for yourself and you say that by doing this you almost ruined your life, and you only knew happiness when you began to live for others. But I experienced the opposite. I lived for fame. (After all, what is glory? the same love for others, the desire to do something for them, the desire for their praise.) So I lived for others, and not almost, but completely ruined my life. And since then I have become calmer, as I live for myself.
- How can one live for oneself? – Pierre asked heatedly. - And the son, and the sister, and the father?
“Yes, it’s still the same me, it’s not others,” said Prince Andrei, but others, neighbors, le prochain, as you and Princess Mary call it, are the main source of error and evil. Le prochain [Neighbor] are those, your Kyiv men, to whom you want to do good.
And he looked at Pierre with a mockingly defiant gaze. He apparently called Pierre.
“You’re kidding,” Pierre said more and more animatedly. What kind of error and evil can there be in the fact that I wanted (very little and poorly fulfilled), but wanted to do good, and at least did something? What evil can it be that unfortunate people, our men, people just like us, growing up and dying without any other concept of God and truth, like ritual and meaningless prayer, will be taught in the comforting beliefs of a future life, retribution, reward, consolation? What evil and delusion is it that people die from illness without help, when it is so easy to help them financially, and I will give them a doctor, and a hospital, and a shelter for the old man? And isn’t it a tangible, undoubted blessing that a man, a woman and a child have no rest day and night, and I will give them rest and leisure?...” said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. “And I did it, at least poorly, at least a little, but I did something for this, and not only will you not dissuade me that what I did was good, but you will also not disbelieve me, so that you yourself do not think so.” “And most importantly,” Pierre continued, “I know this, and I know it correctly, that the pleasure of doing this good is the only true happiness in life.
Noodles were a much more familiar dish for the Japanese, but the power of Japanese food companies was clearly not enough to supply the entire country. It was in this that Ando saw a favorable opportunity to expand his business. He began experimenting with noodles, trying to make the dish tasty, inexpensive and easy to prepare.
Momofuku Ando was born in 1910 in Japanese-occupied Taiwan. His parents died when he was a child, and he was raised by his grandparents, who owned a clothing company. When Ando turned 22, he started his own business and moved to Osaka.
In 1934, he successfully graduated from the School of Economics at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto and received Japanese citizenship. Things were going well, but after the end of World War II there was a decline. Ando was sentenced to prison in 1948 for tax evasion, and his company went bankrupt. However, Ando did not despair and soon started from scratch again, founding a company producing table salt. At this time, famine reigned in the country that had lost the war.
People were forced to stand in long lines for food. So Ando was very surprised when he heard that the Japanese Ministry of Health was literally urging people to eat bread made from American wheat received as humanitarian aid. Noodles were a much more familiar dish for the Japanese, but the power of Japanese food companies was clearly not enough to supply the entire country. It was in this that Ando saw a favorable opportunity to expand his business. He began experimenting with noodles, trying to make the dish tasty, inexpensive and easy to prepare.
To be fair, it is worth noting that he was not a pioneer in this matter: during the Chinese Qing dynasty, noodles were fried in oil, after which they could be stored for quite a long time, and if necessary, they could be quickly cooked by pouring boiling water over them. Whether Ando knew about this is unknown, but after trying various methods of preservation (salting and even smoking), he eventually came to the conclusion that the most effective of them was frying in palm oil followed by final drying. In 1958, Nissin Food Products' first product, Chikin Ramen, was introduced to the public.
At first, the new dish was expensive and was considered a delicacy, but within a year prices fell and sales began to grow rapidly. In 1971, the company combined form and substance and released its most successful product, which later became a global bestseller - Cup Noodles, noodles in a polystyrene foam cup. Now it is one of the best-selling instant products: in 2005, 85 billion packages were sold worldwide! And in 2000, answering the question about the main Japanese invention of the 20th century, the Japanese clearly put in first place not ultra-modern computers or electronic devices, but a simple and nutritious dish familiar to almost every modern person.
The modern rhythm of life dictates its own rules, including nutrition. And the constant lack of time contributed to the emergence of instant products on the Russian and Western markets. The most purchased and in demand among people were the products of the Rollton and Doshirak companies, which had proven themselves to be good. Consumers eat Doshirak and Rollton, regardless of their social level and gastronomic preferences. Instant foods help you save time on preparing everyday meals and help you avoid dry meals. Instant food products will come in handy not only during your lunch break at work, but also on a hike, a long trip, or at the dacha. However, many people use Rollton and Doshirak in everyday life.
Who invented instant ramen noodles?
The origins of the creation of instant noodles by mankind lie in medieval China. The fairly economically favorable situation in the country has created an impetus for the development of new tastes and aromas of food. This process did not bypass the traditional Chinese dish - noodles.
In different places during this period, new types of noodles were created, which in the future would become the main specialty of each province. Among all the types of noodles created then, the most unique was “E-fu Noodles”, from the city of Yangzhou, (Jiangsu Province), or it is also called “Yi Noodles” (Yi), named after the chef scientist Yui Bingshou ), who created it.
Yui experimented with the noodles and came up with the idea of first frying them in oil, then drying them so that he could store them longer and boil the noodles in water later, right before serving. To be precise, these noodles were not instant, but rather long-lasting, if not for one side effect of frying in oil, or rather, the ability to eat them raw, crunching like modern chips. In this regard, it was truly one of the first fast foods. But, we must pay tribute to Bingzhou, he was the first to start frying the product itself in oil, and it was this technology that formed the basis for the creation of instant noodles in the future. And, nevertheless, E-fu noodles were a product of accelerated preparation, because to prepare them right before serving, you did not need to knead and roll out the dough, pull the noodles themselves before boiling them, but simply throw them into boiling water and cook.
Yes, for a resident of the 21st century, this is no longer fast, but then it was a revolution. But it took another four centuries to create a truly quick-cooking product. And here the initiative for creation passes to Japan.
In 2000, a survey was conducted among Japanese residents in order to find out which Japanese invention of the twentieth century the Japanese themselves consider the greatest, which was fairly unanimously recognized as instant Ramen noodles. The creator of instant noodles was Momofuku Ando. Despite the fact that it’s hard to believe now, he struggled to develop his culinary invention for many years, and the task he set for himself was nothing less than solving the problem of world hunger.
In 1945, after the Japanese surrender, Ando was in his hometown of Osaka. Looking at the consequences of the destruction, it was not easy to remain optimistic. The air attacks caused great damage to the city, destroying a huge number of buildings, including two office buildings and a factory that he himself had built. It was at that time, while walking around the city, he saw people lining up at makeshift Ramen stands and waiting patiently.
For many years after the end of the war, the Japanese continued to suffer from lack of food. Until 1957, Ando held a high-ranking position: after the war, he became president of a large bank. However, in 1957, the bank went bankrupt and Ando was not only left without a job, but also suffered from an oppressive feeling of guilt. His thoughts turned again to how to solve the problem of his starving fellow citizens. He believed that throughout the world, “peace will come when all people have enough food.”
That's when he remembered the people who stood in line after the war for a bowl of ramen noodles. He began working on transforming a familiar and beloved noodle dish into a miracle product that met his originally invented criteria. The goal was to achieve a dish that was: Delicious, Never spoiled, Ready in no more than a couple of minutes, and Cheap.
For a year he tried to come up with a suitable way to dry the noodles, but nothing worked. The resulting cooked noodles had neither the right texture nor taste. It is said that, almost by accident, he dropped some noodles into the hot oil that his wife had prepared for the upcoming dinner. The result was excellent: with this method, the noodles not only dried out, but also became slightly porous. This gave the desired effect when subsequently soaked with hot water.
Momofuku Ando was 48 at the time. His career took an unexpected turn: he became the inventor and producer of a dish that later became a symbol of inspiration for Japan. Finally, he could feel some kind of redemption for the responsibility that tormented him before the ruined investors. Japanese industry was developing rapidly, and noodles came in handy to feed the poor class of workers.
At first, it was true that the Japanese public tended to view the amazing new noodles as a luxury product. First of all, it appeared in ordinary cafes selling ramen and sold it at a price that even exceeded the cost of the original “long” noodles.
But this, of course, did not correspond to Ando's plan. He came up with cheap food, not fancy snacks for the rich. Soon people realized that noodles were indeed very cheap and easy to prepare, and their sales in supermarkets began to grow rapidly. Gradually, other manufacturers appeared on the market, and Ando himself continued to march around the planet, hoping to get closer to creating “world peace.”
Ando's Nishin company began promoting the invention on the American market. At that time in America, Ramen noodles were not known outside of immigrant communities, and even more so, Americans did not know how to use the chopsticks with which noodles are traditionally eaten. It was decided that they could easily eat the noodles with a fork, and it was released to the market under the name “Udles of Noodles.”
Sales of noodles in the US were not particularly strong. The noodles at that time were different from the ones we were used to. It was not enough to simply add water; it was necessary to cook it for 2-3 minutes. In addition, the name translated into Russian resembles something like “Lots of Delicious Noodles,” only in rhyme. As a result, noodles were not particularly popular among the main target audience - men.
During a work trip to America in 1966, Ando noticed that the managers of the supermarket that sold his noodles used washed disposable plastic coffee cups as utensils. They simply used them because there were no other utensils, but Ando came up with the idea that this was a great idea for improving his product. Subsequent development took a full 5 years.
And so, in 1971, this new, improved version of noodles was released to the American market, called “Cup Noodles” - “Cup Noodles”. All you need to do is pour boiling water over these noodles and in just a few minutes they are ready to eat. This time the success was immediate. Cup noodles provided people with a completely unique opportunity to get a hot meal in just a few minutes, without having access to a kitchen or knowing how to cook. All this with just a glass of hot water.
Subsequently, Ando also developed special noodles for astronauts, which could be consumed in zero gravity, which did not spill thanks to the thick broth and did not need hot water, thanks to the miniature noodles.
Momofuku Ando died in 2007 and such a large number of people came to the farewell ceremony for him that it had to be held at a football stadium. Momofuku and his noodles became a symbol of rebirth after the war and the Japanese consider him their national hero. He lived to be 96 years old, and continued to visit his factories to talk with workers until the day before his death, despite the fact that at this point he had already been officially retired for two years. Ando developed an entire philosophy due to his experience as the inventor of noodles. Its basis was the opinion that: “people mistakenly think that they can achieve everything if they remove all the obstacles in their way.” In fact, obstacles and difficulties are what motivate us to find solutions to problems.
Currently, noodles are very popular all over the world as a food for students who are always short on money and who also don’t really know how to cook. Worldwide sales of instant noodles amount to more than 94 billion units per year.
In the city of Yakohama in Japan there is a museum dedicated to Ando's invention, which was built in 1994. On its territory, a full-size model of a Tokyo street from 1958, the year of the invention of noodles, was created.
And in New York in 2004, a Ramen noodle restaurant called Momofuku Noodle Bar was opened, which became one of the most fashionable establishments of the year. The queue for table reservations there stretched for months in advance.
China, including Hong Kong, ate 44 billion of the 101.4 billion servings of instant noodles sold worldwide last year, according to a study by the Japan-based World Instant Noodle Association. EPA photographer Shepard Zhou decided to document this fact with a photo report from a factory in Wuhan.
The technology for producing instant noodles consists of several stages: kneading dough from flour of special varieties of wheat, making thin pasta, steam heat treatment, drying, frying, and the last stage - packaging.
Integrated lines for the production of instant noodles allow you to fully automate the process of preparing noodles from the dough kneading stage to packaging the finished product.
The process begins by feeding flour and salted water into special equipment (vertical dough mixer), thus kneading the dough. Next comes rolling out and cutting the dough. Special equipment allows you to roll out, cut and form noodles into a “wave”. After just 10 minutes, the formed noodles are fed into the steam tunnel for cooking.
The next stage is the process of cooking and molding. In the steam tunnel, the noodles undergo heat treatment at a temperature of 95-1000`C. Then it is cut and shaped to the specified dimensions. The parameters are controlled by infrared rays.
Frying and drying are also carried out using special equipment. It consists of a main body, a heat exchanger, an oil circulation pump, filters and an oil container. Frying in palm oil at a temperature of 140-1500°C allows you to quickly evaporate excess moisture.
Next, in the cooling tunnel, the finished noodles are cooled by air flow to normal temperature and supplied to packaging.
The packaging process is controlled by infrared rays. The noodles are automatically packed. The equipment allows you to produce and package noodles of different sizes and weights.
If “Doshirak” is positioned as a tasty product that is consumed at home as the main dish and is simply liked by people, then “Rollton” wins the trust of consumers with an ever-increasing variety of tastes, low cost and versatility of packaging. New products also appeared under the Doshirak brand: drinks, mashed potatoes. Listening to the opinions of consumers, KoYa noodles have appeared in more convenient packaging. Not only the methods of “promotion” of products are different, but also their very qualities. The taste of Russian instant products is as close as possible to the taste of traditional Russian dishes. The same cannot be said about the products of the KoYa company, which is ready to please gourmets and lovers of spicy food. However, this does not make these products more or less popular compared to each other. In addition to Rollton noodles, they also produce instant purees and other products, but if we talk about Doshirak and Rollton noodles, the composition of the products is similar. The ingredients and packaging are identical in both cases: dried noodles, oil and seasoning. The aroma largely depends on the preservatives and flavorings that are added to the product to make it even more appetizing. Instant food products are just as filling as regular vegetable and meat foods, which allows them to gain more and more popularity. Alas, this cannot be said about the usefulness of this. They contain much less substances beneficial to health and the body. The lion's share of the energy value of Doshirak or Rollton noodles comes from carbohydrates. By the way, despite the fact that the label indicates beautiful natural products, meat in Doshirak and "Rollton" no. The buyer can enjoy soy “meat” from a Korean manufacturer, but, alas, not everyone will like it.
“Rollton” is preferable for our compatriots because at a low cost it has excellent quality. The lack of frills in the wrapper and composition appeals to those who do not want to overpay for packaging. Consumers who love convenient containers buy Doshirak. “Rollton” in a similar packaging also exists. It is a common belief that the less rich taste of Russian noodles indicates that there is a minimum of “chemicals” in it. As always, the Russian buyer chooses products from a domestic manufacturer. As a result, the Korean company is building factories for the production of Doshirak noodles in Russia. What will come of this, time will tell.
The battle of two powerful brands “Doshirak” and “Rollton” for the domestic market will continue, but in the meantime, marketing specialists are monitoring the prerequisites for the redistribution of demand for products within the segment from cheap instant products to more expensive and high-quality ones, as well as “healthy nutrition”. However, a lot of research has already been carried out on the dangers of artificial additives, and this is the main criterion for those who oppose fast food products. Semi-finished products are firmly entering the instant food market and have all the potential for rapid growth and high demand. Such actions will lead to continuous improvement in the quality and types of products.
