Sunday, September 24, 2006

Righteous Noodles



We eat a lot of ramen / instant noodles (Sw. snabbnudlar, "quick noodles") at my place. I used to do it all wrong. For two fieldwork seasons I had ramen for lunch twice a week -- just the contents of the package with water added. How bland, how meagre, how boring! A package of ramen is like a package of spaghetti. It's the base of a meal, not a building kit with everything included.

My wife saved me from bland ramen by letting me in on some ancient Chinese lore. To enjoy the noodles, you need an egg (crack it into the boiling pot, stir it around) and some Chinese cabbage (try kimchi), sesame oil, and don't use all the powdered soup stock in the satchet. That makes for a good and filling meal.

By the way: eating Chinese cabbage raw (as it is served in Swedish school lunch rooms) is like eating potatoes raw. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Soup stock satchets keep building up in our kitchen. I'm thinking of sending them anonymously to friends just to outweird them.

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9 Comments:

Blogger Martin said...

A friend of mine had no clue about nutrition when he left his parents to go to college. He ate badly, and after a while developed early symptoms of scurvey. He then solved the problem in a characteristically no-nonsense way.

With the aid of a book on nutrition he made up a dish that would give him all the substances he needed. Something like rice with spam and corn and O.J. And then he ate that dish exclusively for months and months. What an epicure...

24 September, 2006 22:05  
Blogger Karen said...

Hey don't knock it! During the last month of my first year at university, I was broke. I lived off of orange rice (substitute oj for water...delicious!) and frozen peas. Not the most complete diet but it got me through.

As for the noodles, I am proud to say that I'm the only person I know to NEVER have eaten one of those packages. Ick ick ick. However, even I know you should have used some of the powder when you made them. What did you think it was for?

25 September, 2006 03:47  
Blogger Martin said...

Orange rice? Sounds like the G.M. golden rice that has a gene for vitamin A.

As for the flavour powder, my point was that there's too much of it in a satchet, so you shouldn't use all of it.

25 September, 2006 08:12  
Blogger Karen said...

Ah I see! I thought you were originally making the noodles with just water - no flavouring whatsoever. That would just be silly!

People give me VERY strange looks when I mention orange rice but I've been eating it for years (my mom used to make it for us when we were kids). It's delicious! Kind of like peanut butter and cheese whiz sandwiches. Mmmmmm....

For some reason GM foods, although I know they're evil, seem to taste soooo good.

25 September, 2006 14:13  
Blogger Martin said...

I'm no stranger to the PBJ sandwich. And I used to be the envy of my class on field days when my dad made me tuna salad sandwiches.
But there's one sandwich perversion I'd rather not try: the dreaded långvårdsbakelse. It combines cheese and orange marmalade.

25 September, 2006 14:24  
Blogger Karen said...

Oooh this sandwich you mention sounds intriguing. Is it "real" cheese or some kind of cheese spread? I love marmalade... I may have to risk trying it.

25 September, 2006 17:35  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Even though I don't believe in 'Hell', I would wish for the person who introduced chinese cabbage to european cooking to burn there for ever and ever.

Yuck!

26 September, 2006 15:05  
Blogger Martin said...

An appropriate punishment would perhaps be to be force-fed rød grød med fløde for all eternity while listening to Kim Larsen's collected oeuvre.

26 September, 2006 20:45  
Blogger Pär said...

Marmalade on cheese on buttered toast is an excellent combination. I always have it at breakfast buffets.

Here are my favourite noodles, btw:

http://blog.oftheoctopuses.com/ramen/ramen06.jpg

27 September, 2006 09:47  

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