Instant ramen was invented by Momofuku Ando in 1958. In his biography, “The Story of the Invention of Instant Ramen” (2002), Ando recalls walking through the streets of Ōsaka after the end of World War II and seeing a long line of people shivering in the cold, waiting for a bowl of ramen. Food shortages were widespread at the time, and Ando remembered telling himself, “Peace will come when people have food.” He resolved to come up with a nutritious, inexpensive, and easy-to-prepare ramen dish.
Working in a shed behind his house in Ikeda, Japan, Ando experimented with different ways of making, drying, and flavouring noodles. Through trial and error, he finally came up with a method of preparing noodles by sprinkling them with chicken soup and then frying them. When Ando added boiling water to the fried noodles, they moistened and released their chicken flavour. The first instant bowl of ramen soup was ready for production. Although Ando’s product was initially more expensive than a fresh cup of noodles, the price gradually went down because of demand, and instant noodles soon became ubiquitous.
Ando’s company, Nissin, continues to sell his product as Top Ramen and Cup Noodles in a variety of flavours, including beef, shrimp, and soy sauce. The Cup Noodles Museum, with locations in Ōsaka and Yokohama, Japan, celebrates not only noodles but perseverance and ingenuity.