**Ramen **- the familiar name for noodle from East Asia, especially relating to either Japan or Korea. There are so many type of ramen available currently, practically every part of the world but do you know where was it originate from? Japan? or Korea?
Answer is China (those who been to Yokohama Ramen Museum will know this). thought it may yet exactly proven but the highest probability of its existence and creation is from adaptation of Chinese La Mian where it is also the same form of wheat noodles. It is so amazing to see how Ramen has become more essential food than rice in Japan in merely 50 years.
All thanks to the **invention of Instant Noodle in 1958 by founder of Nissin Food, Mr. Momofuku **Ando, which makes Japanese Ramen readily available to be consumed anytime, everywhere. (interestingly, nowadays Korean Instant Noodle Ramen seems to be more popular than the Japanese ones) .
In Japan, different geographical location has different type of ramen but it all boils down to 2 key component: Noodle and Broth. It is more or less then same texture, however the taste and chewiness of the ramen varies. For the noodle, it is still the same ingredients which made up of wheat flour, water, salt and alkaline mineral water (kansui in Japanese terms) which is the key differentiation as compare to other wheat noodle such as Udon. Although egg can be used as the substitute for kansui, it won't taste the different. e.g Chinese Egg Noodle versus Japanese Ramen will have huge difference in texture, chewiness and taste.
Although it is much preferred for the noodle to be hand-made, it is hardly found anymore in the commercialized city in Japan. Machinery and automation, as Japan famously known for, has replaced the manual noodle making process to meet the demand as well as maintaining consistency of the noodle. Despite the noodles are more or less the same (since it is machine-made), Ramen can be distinctly differently - thanks to the broth. There many type of broth and in case you saw some names in Japanese you don't recognized, we are going to described to you each flavor variation for yo in Part 2 – Stay Tune (pls follow me and subscribed ya :D much appreciated).
Appreciate if you can support my post - am still new and learning! :)