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Father of Instant Ramen Passes Away
Chained Fei writes "Ando Momofuku, Father of the Instant Ramen, passed away on January 5th at the age of 96. He concocted the idea for Instant Ramen after WWII, hoping to reduce the amount of poor nourishment for soldiers in the field. If not for this great man, many a poor college student and programmer would have starved over the years. From the article: 'In 1971, Nissin introduced the Cup Noodle featuring instant ramen in a waterproof plastic foam container. Dubbed the "Ramen King," Ando is credited with expanding Nissin into the No. 1 company in the industry and was well-known for his dedication to his work ... In 1999, Ando opened the Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, after installing his second son, Koki, as president of the company.'"
Ando was inspired to develop the instant noodle after coming upon a long line of people on a cold night shortly after World War II waiting to buy freshly made ramen at a black market food stall, according to Nissin.
The experience convinced him that "Peace will come to the world when the people have enough to eat," it said.
He concocted the idea for Instant Ramen after WWII, hoping to reduce the amount of poor nourishment for soldiers in the field.
I'll tell you that soldiers eat this stuff in the field all of the time. I'm in a unit that fields the http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/neRamen noodles are proof of the far reach of the FSM's noodly appendage.
Sodium is not nearly as bad as many people have been lead to believe. Doctors will frequently tell their hypertension patients to cut as much sodium from their diets as possible, but this is because a portion of the population is hypersensitive to sodium, and there is no way to tell whether or not cutting sodium can help their blood pressure until a low sodium diet is tried. If the patient responds well to the low sodium intake, then other more drastic measures like medication can be avoided.
Keep in mind that until the advent of modern preservatives (the most commonly used one is still sodium) and refrigeration/freezing, the primary method of preserving a variety of foods involved salt curing, and many people of long ago had daily intakes of sodium that would be considered astronomical by today's standards, yet managed to find many interesting ways to die that didn't involve stroke or heart attack.
The more you know.
How is that foregoing anything?
I thought instant ramen came from heaven...
That guy needed success so he could move into a good neighbourhood.
It must have been confusing for him in a bad neighbourhood...
random stranger: "Hey, momofuka"
Ando: "how did you know my name"
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
But then again, AFAIC, at this point ramen is still the perfect geek food.
1.) It's hugely high tech. That little fifty cent packet depends on freeze-drying, foil packaging (thank you NASA), fifth or later gen styrofoam if it's in a cup (only recent gens are low in leached plasticizers), chances are you're cooking it in a microwave oven, and on and on. An awful lot of geek skull sweat went into every little pack of noodly goodness.
2.) It's truly imternational. Go for it, tell me again about the evil American cultural hegemony. Ramen is a Chinese food reworked by a Japanese inventor, and increasingly done in south Asian flavors, all sold through American-style distibution.
3.) It's a triumph of free-market capitalism. A better product that succeeded because it is better and getting constantly revised due to low barriers to entry and fierce competition.
4.) It's hackable. Don't want the palm oil? Drain off the water before you eat it and rinse in fresh hot water. Want to add stuff? Folks have been customizing their ramen for thousands of years. Add peanut butter and veggies and it's damn healthy.
5.) It's still cheap. State of the art product for sale so cheap you can buy a case of it for the cost of one meal at, say, Dennys, let alone real food.
Hell, yeah. Ramen. Gimme some more.
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Yes and no. Let's keep in mind that most people unless a few generations back dies too young for us to know how bad their heart disease would have been. They also, on average, exercised far more. Remember, going to take a crap used to mean walking out to the yard and back. Getting your room warm meant building a fire. Traveling quickly meant riding a horse. Stuff we do effortlessly took more exertion for them than many modern folks experience in a routine at the gym.
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Allow me to say, Ando was truly touched by His Noodly Appendage. We have lost a great man. Ramen.
In Memoriam.
Over to my pantry I stroll, to pull out my long unopened pack of Nissin Top Ramen. I shall make a bowl to mark this tragic day.
Cheers, Slashdot.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
and yet lived to be 96 years old. Maybe there is hope for me yet :P
Monstar L
I believe we should each observe three minutes of silence in memory of him. Some of you may even have a timer for that.
Chris Mattern
If you are lucky enough to live in LA
That's a novel definition of the word "lucky"...