An Ode to Ramen

A few weeks after I started my job at MU, a student of mine who occasionally reads this blog asked to interview me about food. I was happy to oblige but still remain a little embarrassed that the best response I could give her was about how college students should not shun ramen noodles.. I'm still a little embarrassed that this is what people will know me for, assuming they paid attention. But there is another part of me that must stand up in defense of this humble, misunderstood and oft-maligned noodle. I grew up eating ramen. I ate ramen before I knew it was ramen. I ate it when all I knew was that it was called Maggi Instant Noodles. I ate it because there was an awesome spokesperson for the product in Malaysia called the Mammee Monster.


The Mammee monster was blue. Like the cookie monster. My other favorite monster. What is not to love about a product associated with a blue furry monster? It stands to reason that if you love cookies because you love the Cookie Monster, you will also love ramen for similar reasons.



But what I especially love about ramen was that it was flavorful. It was always a base upon which to build a dish not an end in and of itself. M sometimes eats ramen and he microwaves it in gobs of water. It seems so nasty that way. No wonder ramen has such a maligned reputation when prepared the way my beloved gringo husband does. The way I learned to prepare it was so much more (excuse the hyperbolic moment) sublime.

Eating ramen was almost a daily ritual for me. I would come home from school and my mom would always make me a snack-meal. The meals would vary from corn on the cob to cheese toast to bread pizza and then during my starvation phase, homemade coleslaw or salad. But ramen was always good. And I would never eat it plain. I would mix the flavor packets, which usually included flavoring plus chili powder plus a packet of sesame oil and then add extra chili sauce for good measure. When I would go to my friend Sharmila's house, we would fry up onions with mustard seeds and add the cooked noodles and mix in cheese. It was so versatile. Associated as it is with longing for my childhood/ adolescence, I can't fully separate the nostalgia out of this memory. But taste is 90% nostalgia and 10% flavor anyway, right?



When I first came to the US, I was appalled that they sold food in places like CVS and Walgreens. Even more surprised that ramen came in gringo flavors like 'roasted chicken.' And I was even more surprised that people did not know that there was a world of ramen out there and that no self-respecting Asian would eat just plain ramen. I mean, seriously. Look at the packaging and compare with the packaging from the Asian brands?The American ramen packets so BORING.

So now I've turned my love for ramen into something of an obsession. I don't eat it every day, or even every week. But after I teach, and come home for lunch, it still feels right to cook up some kimchee ramen and add a boiled egg for good measure. But my taste for ramen has actually taken me into the cultural representation of this humble noodle and has lead me to a few predictable places. The first is the classic film by Japanese director, Juzo Itami, Tampopo.. Tampopo, simply put is one of the smartest and most brilliant food films out there. It takes a very simple premise--what is a single mom who is the owner of a failing noodle shop to do--and makes ramen the star ingredient. One of my very favorite scenes in this movie full of sensual, sexual, repugnant and suggestive food scenes is one where a character explains how to eat ramen. When I watched it a few years ago, I immediately ran to the closest Japanese restaurant to partake in the ramen noodle soup they sold. Tampopo takes food seriously, and it also takes the craft of making ramen seriously.



It is fascinating to me that a food associated with speed and efficiency in the US is actually a labor intensive cuisine. Ramen is incredibly difficult to make from scratch and both Tampopo and the Oishinbo manga, Ramen and Gyoza, take this seriously.



In Ramen and Gyoza we learn numerous ways in which ramen titillates and its a remarkably smart and beautiful paean to this noodle.

So following my interest in ramen, I was delighted to come across a film, The Ramen Girl, . I watched it on Netflix instant viewing and from the beginning it just did not satisfy. First of all, it is a film that can best be described as Tampopo meets Lost in Translation. Since I did not like Lost in Translation it did not bode well that this film was about gringa alone in Tokyo who tries to find herself. The culture-clash narrative is trite and all of the humor comes from seeing how the Japanese sensei and the young Americaine can't communicate. Eventually of course, they become friends and she earns his respect and opens up her own noodlery in NYC, in the shadows of the Empire State Building. (Technically, the 34th street area south of Herald Square has more Korean eateries, not chi-chi ramen shops, but I’ll not quibble over that particular detail). What astounds me in the film is that ramen is all about her. She wants to learn how to make ramen because it makes her happy one evening. She is interested in becoming the perfect student, replicating her sensei's art. The reason the sensei teaches her is ostensibly because he has an estranged relationship with his son and wants her to take his place. Perhaps I'm just a cantankerous curmudgeon but details matter to me. Once Brittany Murphy learns how to perfect the art of ramen-making, she up and leaves for the US. Is this carrying on her sensei's legacy or has she merely appropriated another form of Asianness? Her restaurant is even called "The Ramen Girl" suggesting a kind of ownership that seems at odds with the film's supposed espousal of a cross-cultural ethos predicated on mutuality and respect. Just look at the stupid DVD cover of the film. Its as if ramen can't be interesting unless you can locate the white American girl dead in the center of the narrative, in this case the bowl of ramen.



But more than anything, I didn't love this film because the character has no 'authentic' relationship to ramen. She goes to the ramen shop to feel better. She wants to fill a void. She never enjoys the luxuriating flavors of the dish after her first time sampling the noodles. It could be ramen, but it could also be any other labor intensive culinary item.
Herein lies the difference. Ramen here, is merely the conceit to speak about cross-cultural exchanges whereas in Itami's film, ramen is the ingredient that drives the narrative forward. It is the star ingredient and is robust, multi-textured and complex.

I did enjoy the film, I won't lie. But its not as engaging as Tampopo. But even after all these years (I've been eating ramen for almost 30 years now), its still amazing to me that ramen can be such a powerful basis upon which to build narratives. In these films, ramen is that base and for me, my narratives were more culinary. But there was always a different story to tell, and with some good luck, there'll always be more stories to tell with ramen as the star ingredient.

Side note: After posting this, I noticed that said-student mentioned at beginning of this posting has also written about this film on her blog. Check it out!