This week is week 20 and so I thought I would do a great post ( not that my other posts are bad or anything). I had I tougher time thinking of this post just because I am getting less creative as school nears its end, but luckily I had an amazing idea last second. This might be my best post yet, maybe ever. Enjoy.

Ramen, that is what this post is all about. We are going to talk about what ramen was like in the past present and how it has changed in that time. Personally I think ramen is the best food and so I am excited to see how it has developed into the food it is now.

Originally ramen is a variation of Chinese noodles. There a few different theories behind how the Chinese noodle came to Japan, but after some research it appears that the most logical answer is that it came over in the late 1900’s by Chinese immigrants. 

That’s cool and all but you’re probably wondering how it got to its more modern self ( instant noodles). Well after WWII Japan had a rice shortage and it was very bad, in fact it was their worst harvest in over 42 years. This left Japan in dire need of food assistance, luckily the US had decided to sell a whole bunch of flour at ridiculously low prices between 1984-1951. This is how ramen started to become more popular. This wheat was given out by the government, however their food distribution was often times very behind schedule. Another issue was that the USA kept in place laws that did not allow people had to eat outside. These rules were put in place during war by the Japanese government.

I am almost at the connection to modern day noodles but there is one more part that is very interesting. With that law in place most Japanese ate at black market food vendors, and soon after the wheat arrived in Japan it started to be smuggled to these vendors so they could serve ramen. In addition most of these black market stall were controlled by the Yakuza ( Japanese gang). This lead to a lot of vendors being arrested. Eventually these rules were loosened and then discarded all together. 

Now during this time there was a guy called Momofuku Ando who was convinced that the Japanese people should make noodles as they were traditional. He then goes on to create his own ramen that was ok to eat for a long period of time. His idea was to take the noodles and fry then quickly to instantly have a good bowl of ramen. This idea was introduced in late 1950s and then later in the 70s it become noodles that you could take with you and cook.

Now there is your history of ramen and personally I think it is pretty cool. However what really inspired my to write this post was the fact the just the other day I went out to Kinton ramen which is out at UBC and it was some really good ramen. Before that I ate at Jinya downtown and that was probably the best I have every had. At home I am used to just instant ramen and I realized just how big the difference between them is. What’s really crazy is that over the years the standard for ramen has kept on growing to the point where I can have $1 ramen or I can go out and eat $17 ramen that is much higher quality.

In conclusion I would say the only constants in ramen is that it has always been something that is easy to eat on the go, other wise it has changed over and over again to become what it is in this day and age. The quality has improved, the size of the dish as increased, and the now it is dish with many toppings that add to the overall greatness, that did not exist back in 1900’s.

If you want to see real ramen here is a video that covers some of the best.

I hope everyone who reads thins enjoys my rant about how great ramen is.

That’s all for now