Personal Pan Histories: Instant Noodles

As a picky eater, and the child of poor graduate students and first-generation immigrants, I ate oodles of instant noodles growing up. In every form—from “just add hot water” to enhanced with ham, eggs, spinach, and cucumbers—instant noodles have maintained a constant presence in my life.

Kuha455405, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When I was a child growing up in Beijing and later Pittsburgh, I was only allowed the indulgence of instant noodles during birthdays, as noodles are the traditional Chinese symbol of longevity.¹ Eventually, my parents relented after repeatedly failing to appease their picky eater, and this deliciously unhealthy, rich-in-flavor but cheap-in-price, modern but traditional food product became a staple of my diet. I still vividly remember relishing the simplicity and minimal preparation of instant noodles during both my middle school summers and my first engineering job in bachelorhood. Maybe its creation was reflective of the desire for convenience in our busy lives, but a deeper probe of history might propose a reverse causal story.

In post-World War II Japan, the large influx of wheat flour arriving in the form of U.S. aid was often turned into ramen, a traditional Japanese dish, for the starving population.² In 1958, Momofuku Ando applied modern manufacturing techniques to create a modern but culinarily-familiar food invention that became ready to eat in two minutes simply by adding boiling water.³ As with advances in appliance technology that simplified household chores and resulted in more time for other activities, I often wonder if my mom would have had enough time to cook for me on top of a busy work schedule if not for this convenient, cheap, filling, and safe food.⁴

At the CupNoodles Museum, Yokohama. LWYang from USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In time, instant noodles left the kitchen too. From prison cells to college dorm rooms, from the driver’s seats of migrant workers’ pickups to the noodle carts of urbanizing Papua New Guinea, instant noodles are being prepared and providing nourishment across society and across the globe.⁵ I even remember my envy at fellow travelers chowing down on instant noodles during my childhood train rides.

Yet I stopped eating the iconic college student food during my college years. As researchers started to link instant noodles and other cheap processed foods to the global obesity crisis, I started to suspect my childhood weight problems stemmed from my excess consumption of instant noodles.⁶ But like the many twists of a noodle brick, instant noodles returned to my life after the sudden tragic passing of my father as a source of comfort and nostalgia. I finally realized the complex role that instant noodles and all food play in our lives. What we eat involves convoluted tradeoffs between price and quality, health and taste, convenience and tradition.⁷

Instant noodles in a Chinese supermarket, 維基小霸王, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It is even often claimed that food and culinary exchanges are the best way to learn about new cultures, establish friendships, and promote understanding. Instant noodles’ culinary parent, ramen, is culinarily-related to Chinese la-mian and exemplifies the once-rich historical cultural exchange between China and Japan.⁸ Just like tomatoes in Italy, coffee in Turkey, potatoes in Ireland, and tea in Britain, instant noodles are being absorbed in the local culinary palate and might one day spawn new national dishes. At least in our household, I think the cultural union is occurring as I see my wife dining on my favorite food.⁹

Recipe: Xiao’s Instant Noodles (Serves 2)

Directions

1. Fill a medium size pot 2/3 full of water.
2. Put as much spinach in the water as one desires and to a boil on high heat.
3. When the water is boiling, crack open 3 eggs in the water, then lower heat to medium.
4. Add either 2 slices of boneless ham or a chopped-up hotdog (optional), and wait for the water to boil again.
5. Add 2 packs of instant ramen noodles and flavor packets
6. Cook for 3 minutes.
7. Ready to eat with a cucumber on the side.

1. Na Zhang and Guansheng Ma, “Noodles, traditionally and today,” Journal of Ethnic Foods 3, no. 3 (2016):209-212.
2. George Solt, The Untold History of Ramen: How Political Crisis in Japan Spawned a Global Food Craze (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014).
3. “History,” World Instant Noodles Association.
4. Jeremy Greenwood, Evolving Households: The Imprint of Technology on Life (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2019).
5. Frederick Errington, Deborah Gewertz, and Tatsuro Fujikura, The Noodle Narratives: The Global Rise of an Industrial Food into the Twenty-First Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014).
6. Mohammadreza Askari, Javad Heshmati , Hossein Shahinfar, Nishant Tripathi, Elnaz Daneshzad “Ultra-processed food and the risk of overweight and obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies,” International Journal of Obesity 44, no. 10 (2020): 2080-2091.
7. Kelvin J. Lancaster, “A new approach to consumer theory” Journal of Political Economy 74, no. 2 (1966): 132-157; Aviv Nevo, “Empirical models of consumer behavior,” Annual Review of Economics 3, no. 1 (2011): 51-75.
8. Barak Kushner, Slurp! A Social and Culinary History of Ramen-Japan’s Favorite Noodle Soup (Global Oriental, 2014).
9. Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s and should not be attributed to the Economic Research Service or the USDA.