86 billion serves of instant satisfaction

I have a bit of a love/ hate relationship with instant noodles… love them when I’m starving but hate to think about what is in them. The January 20-26 issue of The Economist reported that Momofuko Ando, inventor of instant noodles, died on January 5th, aged 96. Here are a few quotes from the tribute:

For centuries men and women have turned to the east for the secret of life, health and happiness. But Momofuku Ando taught that there is no need to climb half-naked up a mountain peak, or meditate for hours on a prayer-mat, or knot one’s legs around one’s neck while intoning “Om” through the higher nasal passages. One should simply

Peel off lid
Pour boiling water.
Steep for three minutes.
Stir well and serve.

…In 2006, 86 billion servings of instant noodles were eaten around the world. And all this began with a vision…One cold night in 1957, walking home from his salt-making factory in Osaka, in Japan, Mr Ando saw white clouds of steam in the street, and a crowd of people gathering. They were waiting for noodles to be cooked to order in vats of boiling water, and were prepared to wait a long time. Why not make it easier? thought Mr Ando. And why not try to do it himself?

…The road was long. It took a year, working day and night in a shed in his back garden, to find the secret of bringing noodles back to life… The secret, picked up from his wife as she cooked vegetable tempura, was to flash-fry the cooked noodles in palm oil. This made them “magic”.

In 1958 instant noodles went on the market, yellowish wormy bricks in cellophane bags, and were laughed at by fresh-noodle makers all over Japan. They were just a high-tech craze, costing six times as much as the fresh stuff; they would never catch on. By the end of the first year, Mr Ando had sold 13m bags and had attracted a dozen competitors. He never looked back. In 1971 came noodles in heat-proof polystyrene cups… The Japanese voted instant noodles their most important 20th century invention… Mr Ando’s firm, Nissin, became a $3 billion global enterprise… In 2006, a Japanese astronaut, on board the space shuttle Discovery, supped Mr Ando’s noodles from a handy vacuum pack. He appeared on TV ads weightless and smiling, his enlightenment complete.