John Lester
Associated Press
Prepare cup noodle ice cream at the Cup Noodle Museum in Yokohama, Japan. It is made from a cup of flour soup and topped with frozen fried shrimp, onions, eggs and meat. The ice cream sold only at the Yokohama Museum embodies the adventurous spirit in Japanese food. (AP Photo/John Lester)
Yokohama, Japan (Associated Press)-The food of various countries is also the window to their souls.
Take a hamburger. Hand-held, quickly assembled and gobbled up, they embody the typical American philosophy put forward by the American founder Benjamin Franklin in 1748, and they still provide motivation for ambitious people on Wall Street and other areas. “Remember,” Franklin wrote, “time is money.”
In China, food is ubiquitous in the national psychology. When people greet each other, they will greet each other with “eating fans and happy mothers”-have you eaten? The snobbery of French cuisine prompted President Jacques Chirac, known for his omnivorous nature, to jokingly jokingly to the British: “People can’t believe people with such bad food.”
This brings us to the Cup Noodle Museum in Yokohama, Japan.
Yes, there is such a place. And, yes, there is much to be said to facilitate Japan’s creativity, adventurous spirit, and openness to adapt and upgrade foreign influences, which helped Japan recover as an economic, cultural, and gastronomic giant after World War II.
Some of these same characteristics also helped Japan achieve the incredible feat of hosting the Olympics during the pandemic—or stupidly, the jury has left. Allowing 11,000 athletes from all over the world, some of whom carry the coronavirus, is a testament to Japan’s resilience, enthusiasm and flexibility.
Now back to ramen-forgive the pun-a history of potted plants.
The Japanese eat noodles from neighboring China, where they are called “ramen.” Over the years, Japanese chefs have elevated ramen to an art, a refreshing spectrum of tastes, textures and choices.
In short, Japan absorbed foreign influence and improved it. Cars, gadgets, and (for fans of “Devil Slayer”, “One Piece” and other comics) cartoons, to name a few, are the same.
Back to noodles, though. Shocked by the food shortage raging in Japan after the war, Momofuku Ando, a poor former credit union worker, thought of the idea of turning surplus American wheat into ramen noodles. The hungry people only need hot water and a few minutes to prepare it.
Ando suddenly thought of this while watching his wife fry tempura.
This gave birth to the idea of quickly frying noodles to dehydrate them.
Ando’s first instant noodles were launched in 1958.
Cup Noodles came out in 1971. Ando went to the United States in 1966 to conduct a fact-finding survey, when he saw consumers of his instant noodles add water and eat them in paper cups, and he came up with this idea. According to Nissin Foods, a company founded by Ando. In 2016, the cumulative global sales of cup noodles exceeded 40 billion pieces.
Ando passed away in 2007 at the age of 96. But his innovative spirit lives in one of the most unique flavor experiences in the world: cup noodle ice cream.
It is only available in the cafeteria on the fourth floor of the Cup Noodles Museum. It is made with the same soup powder and freeze-dried ingredients (onion, shrimp, egg cubes and meat) as the actual cup noodles.
Noriyuki Sato, a museum visitor who tried it, described it as “salty and sweet”, both here and there. “I’m not sure if this term makes sense to foreigners,” he said. “Neither sweet nor salty.”
But it is a monument to think outside the box, and a monument to Japan’s knack for fusing seemingly incompatible things together to create new things. It’s hard to imagine an Italian ice cream manufacturer so boldly deviating from the norm.
Nissin Foods spokesperson Kahara Suzuki said that ice cream — having tasted it, some people hesitate to call it dessert — embodies “I call it the punk rock spirit that many Japanese have.”
“Who would come up with such an idea? I mean it is very unique,” Suzuki said. “You can see the punk rock spirit in every aspect of Japanese life.”
Of course it’s on the Japanese plate. Some other examples include fruit sandwiches sold in corner shops and popular rice burgers. Since May, they and their favorite have joined the rice pizza developed by Sachie Oyama, the innovative chef and menu innovation manager of Domino’s Pizza Japan Inc..
The Domino’s Deluxe version is actually a pizza based on compressed, pre-cooked Japanese cultivated white rice instead of the usual pizza dough base. Then pour a rich tomato sauce on the rice and top it with traditional pizza ingredients: mozzarella cheese, onions, peppers, pepperoni and salami. Domino’s only sells this product line in Japan. Koyama calls it “pizza you can eat by yourself” instead of sharing slices.
“The Japanese are good at rearranging things,” she said. “The combination of pizza and rice is not strange at all.”
Maybe not. But such food does help explain why Japan never seems to stand still. After all, there are always new flavors to be invented.
