Momofuku Ando, inventor of the ramen instant noodle, died last week at age 96. Lawrence Downes praises the packaged noodles as the ideal if imperfect fast food, possibly even better than (dare I say it?) ... KD. (thanks, Guynick!)

An excerpt from the NYT commentary:

Macaroni and cheese in a box is a convenience product requiring several inconvenient steps. You have to boil the macaroni, stir it to prevent sticking and determine through some previously obtained expertise when it is “done.” You must separate water from noodles using a specialized tool, a colander, and to complete the dish — such an insult — you have to measure and add the fatty deliciousness yourself, in the form of butter and milk that Kraft assumes you already have on hand. All that effort, plus the cleanup, is hardly worth it.

Ramen noodles, by contrast, are a dish of effortless purity. Like the egg, or tea, they attain a state of grace through a marriage with nothing but hot water. After three minutes in a yellow bath, the noodles soften. The pebbly peas and carrot chips turn practically lifelike. A near-weightless assemblage of plastic and foam is transformed into something any college student will recognize as food, for as little as 20 cents a serving.

There are some imperfections. The fragile cellophane around the ramen brick tends to open in a rush, spilling broken noodle bits around. The silver seasoning packet does not always tear open evenly, and bits of sodium essence can be trapped in the foil hollows, leaving you always to wonder whether the broth, rich and salty as it is, is as rich and salty as it could have been. The aggressively kinked noodles form an aesthetically pleasing nest in cup or bowl, but when slurped, their sharp bends spray droplets of broth that settle uncomfortably about the lips and leave dots on your computer screen.

But those are minor quibbles. Ramen noodles have earned Mr. Ando an eternal place in the pantheon of human progress. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Give him ramen noodles, and you don’t have to teach him anything.

Here's the Jan. 9 NYT obit.

The best/worst ramen noodle story I ever heard: Web designer Joshua Davis, before he got famous, was so poor he lived in a squat with no electricity or running water. He ate ramen noodles dry and uncooked. "C'mon, everybody's done it!" he told a crowd at the Bloor Cinema back in 2002. Well, not really. :)

And finally, what posting about Japanese noodles would be complete without a mention of Tampopo? :)