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Father of Instant Ramen Passes Away

Posted by Zonk on Sun Jan 07, 2007 04:21 AM
from the a-sad-day-for-noodles dept.
Programming Science IT Technology
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.'"
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  • RIP (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2007, @04:25AM (#17496060)
    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.

    • Ode to ramen (Score:5, Interesting)

      by perfessor multigeek (592291) <pmultigeek&earthlink,com> on Sunday January 07 2007, @05:16AM (#17496290) Homepage Journal
      Yeah, sure, he started this. Of course when it first came out it was ungodly expensive [straightdope.com], so right there it wasn't quite what it is now.

      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 [wikipedia.org] 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.

      • Re:Ode to ramen (Score:5, Informative)

        by TheLink (130905) on Sunday January 07 2007, @06:20AM (#17496520) Journal
        There are air dried versions of ramen, and those have negligible amounts of oil.

        These often don't come with any flavouring as well, so you may have to do a bit of cooking if you don't have extra flavour packets around.

        You could fry in olive oil and black pepper + a bit of chopped parsley, then add a fried egg. Yes you're adding oil back again, but good olive oil is worth it :). With the egg the entire meal gives you a fair balance of carbo, protein and fat.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by gEvil (beta) (945888)
          Fried egg? Nah, just scramble one up in a cup and then dump it in your boiling ramen at the end. Whisk it around with a fork for about 5 seconds and you're done. Of course, this only works with non-instant ramen.
          • Derr, i meant non-microwavable, not non-instant.
          • Yeah, that works well with the soup based ramen. The one I was talking about was for the those that don't include soup.

            The average student could probably survive long enough on a diet of just instant ramen and boiled fresh egg to graduate or drop out for other reasons.

            Not recommended though :).

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by yokem_55 (575428)
              I knew somebody in school who while studying abroad in Germany, had a diet that consisted of saltine crackers, tomato paste, and tuna. According to him he kept himself fed for $2/day. Granted, he could have been eating better if he weren't spending $50/week on beer, but he figured that he needed to more fully study the culture while he was there and thus aligned his dietary priorities accordingly.

      • after WWII, hoping to reduce the amount of poor nourishment for soldiers in the field.

        Funny, no mention of that "peace dividend from a war product" in the actual story, which instead cites compassion for starving Japanese on soup lines after atomic war devastated their country. But if instant ramen was indeed either inspired or funded justified by feeding soldiers better, then it's proof that outlawing war makes a nation's economy more competitive where it counts: feeding people, and making money. And there

      • That little fifty cent packet

        $0.50 for a single packet of ramen? You got ripped off, dude.
          • If you are lucky enough to live in LA

            That's a novel definition of the word "lucky"...

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by MsGeek (162936)
              "Yakisoba Noodles" are not Soba noodles. They are actually Chinese noodles. The Japanese dish Yakisoba is sort of their answer to Chow Mein. Soba would not survive being stir-fried after boiling. Believe me, I know my Japanese food.

              "Yakisoba (, Yakisoba?), literally "fried noodles", is a dish often sold at festivals in Japan. It originates from Chinese chow mein, but has been integrated into Japanese cuisine like ramen. Even though soba is part of the word, yakisoba noodles are not made from buckwheat, but
    • "Peace will come to the world when the people have enough to eat,"
      What about the wolves?
  • Now I'll have to crawl out of my mother's basement for food!

  • Soldiers Love It! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mork29 (682855) * <(lim.ymra.su) (ta) (kcinley.htiek)> on Sunday January 07 2007, @04:43AM (#17496130) Journal

    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/new s/2002/05/mil-020529-usa01.htm [globalsecurity.org] Stryker which has a water heater inside of it. I'd say it gets used for cooking ramen almost as much as it does for heating MREs (Meal Ready to Eat). Soldiers love this as much as any college student. I can't imagine somebody who doesn't love Ramen though...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nathanh (1214)
      I can't imagine somebody who doesn't love Ramen though...

      I can't stand the stuff. It's oily and salty and plain nasty. I'd rather cook something fresh than eat the freeze-dried instant carbohydrate disaster that is instant ramen.

  • Truly a Miracle (Score:5, Funny)

    by triikan (1035650) on Sunday January 07 2007, @04:46AM (#17496154)
    Ramen noodles are proof of the far reach of the FSM's noodly appendage.

  • There must be a mistake... (Score:5, Funny)

    by creimer (824291) on Sunday January 07 2007, @04:57AM (#17496214) Homepage
    I thought instant ramen came from heaven...

    • Re:There must be a mistake... (Score:5, Funny)

      by gamer4Life (803857) on Sunday January 07 2007, @10:10AM (#17497588)
      It did. The FSM sent it's beloved son, Ando Momofuku, to the world to teach the world about FSM through Ramen. The FSM exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a mutual indwelling of two beings - the FSM and Ando Momofuku. You might ask yourself, "Why?!" -- the answer my friend, is to just accept it, the FSM works in mysterious ways.

      Ra-men, brother.

  • What a heart warming story (Score:5, Funny)

    by joss (1346) on Sunday January 07 2007, @05:03AM (#17496234) Homepage
    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"

  • Ramen. (Score:5, Funny)

    by icefaerie (827772) on Sunday January 07 2007, @05:29AM (#17496342) Homepage
    Allow me to say, Ando was truly touched by His Noodly Appendage. We have lost a great man. Ramen.

  • Momofuku Ando (Score:3, Funny)

    by doomy (7461) on Sunday January 07 2007, @06:05AM (#17496458) Homepage Journal
    Proof that a great name would always work in captalism.

    RIP. Momofuku Ando.

    PS: Your noodle are in my stomach.
  • If not for this great man, many a poor college student and programmer would have starved^H^H^H^H^H^H^H learned to cook over the years.

          There, corrected it! ;)

          So long, Ramen guy. The noodles just won't be the same without you.

    • Not really. I was fortunate that I learned to cook before I went to university, but a lot of my contemporaries live on pasta and a stir-in sauce. Instant Ramen haven't taken off here in the UK (we have pot noodles, but the less said about them the better), so I guess that's the cultural equivalent. In my first year as an undergrad, I lived with a Nepalese guy who had been brought up in a culture where women did the cooking and men weren't allowed in the kitchen; he managed to destroy a saucepan cooking r

  • Top Ramen Spinach Salad Supreme (Score:3, Informative)

    by All_One_Mind (945389) on Sunday January 07 2007, @06:49AM (#17496658) Homepage Journal
    A delicious blend of flavors will keep this super salad on the top of your list!

    Cook noodles according to package directions, but do not add flavor packets. Drain and cool. Cut noodles up slightly. Combine with other salad ingredients in a large bowl. In a small bowl, mix flavor packets, garlic and lemon juice and let stand at least 15 minutes. Add oil and mayonnaise and whisk until smooth. Pour dressing over salad and toss until thoroughly mixed. Garnish with red pepper rings and small grape clusters if desired. Quick and delicious!

    Ingredients:

            * 2 packages Chicken Flavor Top Ramen
            * 8 cups spinach leaves, torn
            * 1-1/2 cups turkey or chicken, cooked and diced
            * 1 cup red or green grapes, halved
            * 1 cup red pepper, slivered
            * 1/2 cup cashews, chopped
            * 1/2 cup gorgonzola or blue cheese, crumbled

    Dressing:

            * 2 Flavor packets from Chicken Flavor Top Ramen
            * 4 cloves garlic, minced
            * Juice from 1 small lemon
            * 1/3 cup olive oil
            * 1/4 cup light mayonnaise

    Serves 2
  • No, really, he did sponsor the publication of a book called (using Romaji) Insutanto Ra-men No Himitsu, or the Secrets of Instant Ramen. I read it back in 1998. It was pretty clear that the company had helped sponsor it, though it was published as part of a very popular series of children's books. The 'secrets' series are educational manga (comic books) for kids, and include such classics as the Secrets of Bread (the food) and the Secrets of Fish (the animals) and the Secrets of Earthquakes. The Secrets of
  • and yet lived to be 96 years old. Maybe there is hope for me yet :P

  • Honoring him (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chris Mattern (191822) on Sunday January 07 2007, @08:37AM (#17497102)
    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
  • Cook noodles but don't add the flavor. Drain and warm noodles with canned chili (Hormel). Mmmm..Mmmm..Mmmm
  • Havent eaten any since college days ( a good 15+ years now ) but for some odd reason was in the mood about 11 pm on the 5th and went out to get some from the local grocery. ( and of course prepared the same way as i did back then.. with burger, their seasoning and just enough pasta sauce to make it wet )

    How odd....

  • Think about this story when you eat cup noodles... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HungWeiLo (250320) on Sunday January 07 2007, @12:47PM (#17498700)
    When I was in high school, a Japanese exchange student told me that many Japanese teens heat up Nissin Cup Noodles, let it sit in cold water for a couple minutes, then drill a hole at the bottom of the cup and use it as a poor man's FleshLight (not worksafe) [fleshlight.com]. Quoth him, "I feels like real thing, man."
    • Maybe not, since he lived to 96yo..

    • Re:Ate much ramen? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Spazntwich (208070) on Sunday January 07 2007, @04:50AM (#17496172)
      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 [nih.gov], 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.
      • 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.
        • Can you imagine having to take a crap out back in blizzard weather?

          What was the psyche when locomotives were being developed? The ability to travel faster than a horse must have been pretty amazing then. I wonder if anyone had any breathing problems with the speed.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by tgd (2822)
          Thats not entirely true... the increasing life expectancy these days is mostly because of two things -- better workplace safety and most importantly a massive reduction in infant mortality rates.

          It doesn't take a lot of people dying at 1 to pull the averages down a lot...

          Thats true of differences between countries today, too. Pull out children below the age of 5, and the numbers start to even out a lot more.

          • Re:Sodium is still bad news (Score:5, Interesting)

            by kfg (145172) on Sunday January 07 2007, @10:30AM (#17497684)
            . . .a massive reduction in infant mortality rates.

            And mortality rates of the mothers. It wasn't at all uncommon for a man to go through two or three wives. Childbirth was extremely risky. That's why infant mortality and deaths due to child birth are the still the two primary indicators of healty care quality.

            On the more generic picture, while fewer people get eaten by bears these days, more of them fall asleep at the wheel. Familiarty breeds contempt, but contempt does not imply that the activity is actually safe. With a bit of practice you can fall asleep at the reins and you will end up . . .home.

            And the biggest saver of lives in modern times isn't avoidence of certain risk factors. If you crunch the numbers from the raw data you find that the theoretical maximum possible effect of this is really, quite, quite small. So small as to be at the borderline of precision of measurment.

            What keeps larger numbers of us who manage to make it to 21 alive to see 75 is really a very small number of things:

            Knowledge of germs
            Antipyretics

            Aspirin; sanitation; antibiotics and vaccines. The simple, basic stuff is responsible for 99.99% of increased adult lifespans.

            Most of our more advanced medical practices, chemotherepy, heart surgery, etc., often solve accute problems, but on closer examination have little to no effect on longer term morbidity rates.

            And unless you are hypertensive; neither does avoiding salt.

            And remember; everyone born more than 125 years ago is already dead. You are going to join them. Get used to the idea. It might help you live.

            KFG
        • The GP's supporting argument might not have been entirely sound, but I'd still like to see the research that proves (or strongly suggests) that sodium causes hypertension where none previously existed. I know it's only anecdotal, but I eat *way* more salt than most people I know (they always complain that my food is too salty) but my blood pressure is actually well below normal.

      • 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.

        Being tortured to death by Genghis Khan might qualify as interesting, but I'll take an old-fashioned heart attack any day. The plague, too, would be far from boring. But I think part of the reason people didn't die back then from conditions endemic to old age is that disease and other factors killed t

        • First, you would have gotten a call from one of his 'people'. Then after many forms and interviews with more lower mid-level 'managers', and lots and lots of waiting in tiny little rooms you might catch a glimpse of Khan but after they were finished, he wouldn't even ever know your name. And God help you if you get trapped in an elevator with him afterwards...

          wait. That's 'trying to get on at Apple.'

    • Re:A Hero (Score:4, Interesting)

      by RulerOf (975607) on Sunday January 07 2007, @07:07AM (#17496740)
      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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DuroSoft (1009945)
      not only that, cup ramen has 920mg of sodium. 200mg is considered too much, but 920mg is more then 50% of your daily maximum intake. If you have even two of those a day, you are giving yourself way too much sodium.... waaaaay too much sodium... but heck, it tastes good! its just like those Stouffer's microwaveable dinners.They have some ridiculous amount of sodium. My aunt started having one of those to eat every day and died within two years. That stuff kills, man. Still tastes good though :)

    • Re:Ramen and MSG (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Arkhan (240130) on Sunday January 07 2007, @05:22PM (#17501248)
      I have exactly that problem, to the extent of needing to avoid foods that contain natural MSG (soy, algae) or produce small amounts of MSG as a processing byproduct (high-fructose corn syrup, autolyzed/hydrolyzed yeast extract, any hydrogenated oil, etc).

      It's funny, in light of the anti-organics rant nearby, but the only ramen I have ever found that I can eat was at Whole Foods. They sell a brand of organic instant ramen (yes, really) that has no explicit MSG in any of it, and even has a few flavors with no soy as well. (The garlic & pepper flavor is very good, as is the ginger lemongrass.)

      I can't recall the brand name, as I'm out right now, but will get more soon and try to follow up with it here.

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