Instant Noodles

After the Second World War, the Japanese and their  country were poor. Food could only be bought from the black market as people had no food to eat. In order to eat a bowl of hot ramen, a kind of noodles popular in Japan, sometimes they had to queue up the whole day in front of ramen shops. Mr Andou had an idea – he decided to create a type of ramen that could be eaten instantly so that people would not have to queue up and wait for it. Hence, this led to the creation of instant noodles in Mr Andou’s tiny old hut.

Let us look at the story behind the creation of instant noodles.

Mr Andou thought that a good bowl of ramen should he tasty safe, simple, and long-lasting. Howewver, how would he make that possible? He tried many different methods but was unable to achieve an ideal outcome.

One day, he saw his wife frying food in the kitchen. Instantly, he came up with the idea of deeo-fried noodles. Once the noodles were fried, boiling water was poured on it, and the noodles became soft as before. This was how instant noodles  wew invented. As for the ramen’s soup base, it was also invented unexpectedly. One  day, while Mr Andou was slaughtering chickens at home, a little chicken blood splattered on his son’s body. Simce then, his sonavoided eating any chicken-related dishes, except for ramen with a chickenbone soup base, which he loved. Hence Mr Andou decided to name his invention the chicken bone soup ramen and marketed it as such. Half a year later, instant noodles became a fast-selling food item.

In 1970, the market for instant noodles in Japann became saturated. However, Mr Andou managef to overcome this by expanding his business to other countries.

Through his observation, he realized that the Westerners were not comfortable eating a big bowl of ramen with chopsticks. To overcome this problem, Mr Andou creatively repackaged his instant noodles into smaller disposable paper cups that included a firk,. This is how the idea of the cup noodles was born and has since benefited us all.

Food for Thought :

There is a saying that change is a constant in our lives. With change comes our efforts to find solutions to our common human needs.

Short Stories on Discoveries, Inventions, Innovation & Creativity

AAET and UTAR, 2015