Ramen (/ˈrɑːmən/) (拉麺, ラーメン, rāmen, IPA: [ɾaꜜːmeɴ]) is a Japanese noodle soup. It consists of Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a meat or (occasionally) fish-based broth, often flavored with soy sauce or miso, and uses toppings such as sliced pork (叉焼, chāshū), nori (dried seaweed), menma, and scallions. Nearly every region in Japan has its own variation of ramen, such as the tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen of Kyushu, and the miso ramen of Hokkaido. Mazemen is a ramen dish that is not served in a soup, but rather with a sauce (such as tare).
Etymology
The word ramen is a Japanese borrowing of the Mandarin Chinese lāmiàn (拉麵, "pulled noodles").[1][2] In 1910, the first ramen shop named Rairaiken [ja] (来々軒) opened at Asakusa, Tokyo, where the Japanese owner employed 12 Cantonese cooks from Yokohama's Chinatown and served the ramen arranged for Japanese customers.[3][4] Until the 1950s, ramen was called Shina soba (支那そば, literally "Chinese soba"). Today Chūka soba (中華そば, also meaning "Chinese soba") or just ramen (ラーメン) are more common, as the word "支那" (Shina, meaning "China") has acquired a pejorative connotation.[5]
Origin
Ramen is a Japanese[6] adaptation of Chinese wheat noodles.[7][8][9][10][11] One theory says that ramen was introduced to Japan during the 1660s by the Chinese neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Shunsui who served as an advisor to Tokugawa Mitsukuni after he became a refugee in Japan to escape Manchu rule and Mitsukuni became the first Japanese person to eat ramen. Most historians reject this theory as a myth created by the Japanese to embellish the origins of ramen.[12]
According to historians, the more plausible theory is that ramen was introduced to Japan in the late 19th[7][13] or early 20th century by Chinese immigrants living in the Yokohama Chinatown.[14][15] According to the record of the Yokohama Ramen Museum, ramen originated in China and made its way to Japan in 1859.[13] Early versions were wheat noodles in broth topped with Chinese-style roast pork.[7]
By 1900, restaurants serving Chinese cuisine from Canton and Shanghai offered a simple dish of noodles (cut rather than hand-pulled), a few toppings, and a broth flavored with salt and pork bones. Many Chinese living in Japan also pulled portable food stalls, selling ramen and gyōza dumplings to workers. By the mid-1900s, these stalls used a type of a musical horn called a charumera (チャルメラ, from the Portuguese charamela) to advertise their presence, a practice some vendors still retain via a loudspeaker and a looped recording. By the early Shōwa period, ramen had become a popular dish when eating out.[citation needed] According to ramen expert Hiroshi Osaki, the first specialized ramen shop opened in Yokohama in 1910.[10][16]
Postwar popularization
After Japan's defeat in World War II, the American military occupied the country from 1945 to 1952.[7] In December 1945, Japan recorded its worst rice harvest in 42 years,[7][17] which caused food shortages as Japan had drastically reduced rice production during the war as production shifted to colonies in China and Taiwan.[7] The US flooded the market with cheap wheat flour to deal with food shortages.[7] From 1948 to 1951, bread consumption in Japan increased from 262,121 tons to 611,784 tons,[7] but wheat also found its way into ramen, which most Japanese ate at black market food vendors to survive as the government food distribution system ran about 20 days behind schedule.[7] Although the Americans maintained Japan's wartime ban on outdoor food vending,[7] flour was secretly diverted from commercial mills into the black markets,[7] where nearly 90 percent of stalls were under the control of gangsters related to the yakuza who extorted vendors for protection money.[7] Thousands of ramen vendors were arrested during the occupation.[7]
In the same period, millions of Japanese troops returned from China and continental East Asia from their posts in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Some of them would have been familiar with wheat noodles.[7] By 1950 wheat flour exchange controls were removed and restrictions on food vending loosened, which further boosted the number of ramen vendors: private companies even rented out yatai starter kits consisting of noodles, toppings, bowls, and chopsticks.[7] Ramen yatai provided a rare opportunity for small scale postwar entrepreneurship.[7] The Americans also aggressively advertised the nutritional benefits of wheat and animal protein.[7] The combination of these factors caused wheat noodles to gain prominence in Japan's rice-based culture.[7] Gradually, ramen became associated with urban life.[7]
Modern
In 1958, instant noodles were invented by Momofuku Ando, the Taiwanese-Japanese founder and chairman of Nissin Foods. Named the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century in a Japanese poll,[18] instant ramen allowed anyone to make an approximation of this dish simply by adding boiling water.
Beginning in the 1980s, ramen became a Japanese cultural icon and was studied around the world. At the same time, local varieties of ramen were hitting the national market and could even be ordered by their regional names. A ramen museum opened in Yokohama in 1994.[19]
Today ramen is one of Japan's most popular foods, with Tokyo alone containing around 5,000 ramen shops,[7] and more than 24,000 ramen shops across Japan.[20] Tsuta, a ramen restaurant in Tokyo's Sugamo district, received a Michelin star in December 2015.[20]
Ramen restaurants were particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan, with 34 chains filing for bankruptcy by September 2020. Ramen restaurants are typically narrow and seat customers closely, making social distancing difficult.[21]
