Just blame Men!
So many things can be blamed on men. The biggest one being weight gain. If it wasn’t for men, so much weight could’ve been avoided. Let me explain and it isn’t what you think it is.
What is the problem with men?
The problem with men is that the root of the problem is how men spread across the world so many ages ago. These days you can find different types of men all over the world, some even with fancy names.
Let’s head back to where this whole men thing got started, China. It is believed that China made some of the first men, then an Italian brought men to Italy and from there we got many different types of men. The most famous Italian men are spaghetti, ravioli, and lasagna.
OK, I’ve taken this joke far enough. Noodles in Japanese are called “men” 麺. This means that you get different types of men, soba, odon, soumen, and ramen, are all types of men.
The problem is that the Japanese people sometimes think in very long terms when it comes to culture. That means they completely forget that there is a big difference between the “men” that came from China and the Japanese in ramen.
This means that ramen is Japanese the same way that spaghetti is Italian. Ramen is Japanese, and not in the way that French fries are American inspired by Belgium, no I mean it as in KFC is American and Nando’s is South African.
Both KFC and Nando’s use chicken, but the final product is completely different. You don’t just claim the origin from one ingredient, you claim it from where it was made. That’s why we are careful to explain that it is a Durban curry not an Indian curry.
What's soup!
Both KFC and Nando’s use chicken, but the final product is completely different.
You don’t just claim the origin from one ingredient, you claim it from where it was made. That’s why we are careful to explain that it is a Durban curry not an Indian curry.
Just for the record, I do know there is a “soup noodle” dish in China. I used to eat it often when I lived there. What I’m saying is the two dishes are completely different. Like Japanese curry and Indian curry….
The “soup noodle” dish I had in China was delicious, I won’t argue that either, but it wasn’t ramen. Chinese soups are “thinner” with the flavour being carried by the ingredients.
Japanese soups are “thicker” normally, and the dashi does the lifting to elevate the flavours of the soup ingredients.
Another difference is the presentation. Chinese soup noodles are just what the name implies, noodles in soup.
Eat with your ears!
With ramen it is the presentation along with the food that is important. Like they say, you eat with your ears first.
Honestly both have their place, I often miss being able to pop into the local restaurant under the apartment building on the way home and getting a hearty meal for less than a cup of coffee at the convenience store.
Beef and rice, soup and noodles, won-ton soup, beef and noodles. All of them are delicious, but none of them with the flair of the ramen sold at the shop close to my house now.
And they didn’t need it, they were made for a different type of client, and it’s all the better for it. I still remember getting home late at night and dropping into the shop for two orders of either beef and rice or soup noodles, one for now and one to reheat for tomorrow morning.
On the other hand we have ramen, with almost each region of Japan claiming a different style or way to make it, there are far too many types of ramen to choose from.
You can spend a year traveling around Japan and still not get to all the different ways it is made. Even in the same area there are often different ways to make the “local” version…
The local way can also be so popular that you can see them in anime, with one anime taking its name from the pride of Fukuoka, Hakata Tonkotsu Ramen. By the way, I’ve had this ramen, both at the original shop and at another one.
It was good, but then again most tonkotsu ramen is. It really sticks to the ribs and warms you up too…. I can’t wait for winter to go to the ramen-ya close to my house to eat a ramen set meal again…
So in my defense, ramen is a cultural part of Japan known to the outside world, but often treated as a “new” thing. Even after 100 years it’s still “new” in Japan, because Japan only slowly changes its ways.
This means that even some foreigners still believe that ramen is Chinese and not the Japanese cultural food treasure that the Japanese people made a world wide phenomenon.
So why not just blame men?
As you can see, men are everywhere. Men are confusing. And men are fattening… if you eat too much that is.
The most important thing to remember is that it doesn’t matter if it is called mein, men, or noodles, it has a way for linking communities together and giving them fun ways to compete and something to blame for the “unexpected” weight gain. So, just blame men.
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