The tangled history of ramen

Generally associated with Japanese cooking and now ubiquitous worldwide in a multitude of variations and formats, the dish now called ramen in fact originated in China and is thought to have only crossed the border to Japan during the early 20th century, although its history is not altogether clear.

What we do know is that at some point around the turn of the 20th century Chinese cooks introduced a new type of wheat noodle, called ‘shina soba’ (‘China noodle’), to Japan. The key difference between classic Japanese noodles such as udon and these newcomers was the use of kansui, a sodium-carbonate mineral water, in their making. The term shina soba was used for the next 30-odd years, but in the aftermath of the Second World War, when the term shina became a racial slur, the noodles were renamed ‘chūka soba’. A few years later, however, in 1958, Nissin Foods produced the first packaged instant version of the noodles, which they called ‘Chikin Ramen’, and the term ‘ramen’ – a portmanteau word consisting of the Chinese ‘la’ (‘pull’) and ‘mian’ (‘noodle’) – stuck.