Ramen's Unholy Reign

I'm not really sure when Ramen replaced real food as America's everyday staple, and I'm sure whichever country it actually originated in is getting a really good belly laugh at how we've come to require it in our diets on a regular basis. If it's sold for 15 cents a packet (10 cents if you're lucky and it's on sale), imagine how little it must take to actually manufacture it. Say.......3 pesos? We're talking a few ounces of freeze-dried noodles (assuming they are, in fact, noodles and not just that paper shredded stuff people use to put in gift bags) and some bouillon in a piece of foil (sorry, "spice packet'). 

I recall my own Ramen evolution, starting when we were young kids and, typically unsupervised, we'd whip up a packet of "Top Ramen" on the stovetop (a stovetop I most definitely shouldn't have been allowed near after the Macaroni & Cheese Incident - Just ask my poor uncle). The noodles would get cooked to perfection, it would always burn our mouth when we ate it, and one pack would easily be lunch for two of us. 

When I was in college and met Jay, I discovered one of his bizarre quirks: He was quite the crazy concocter. (That sounds much dirtier than it is, but he is some wickedly good eye candy so go right ahead and get whatever mental picture out of that you want. I'll allow it.) He was working at the ASU stadium when I met him, and it turns out you CAN bring your work home with you. In his case, that meant all the concession food they could stuff in their freezer. They had no REAL food, but they would've made great astronauts. Nacho cheese sauce and chips, burgers, hot dogs, pretzels, beer...you name it. (No churros, though, for which I still hold a grudge). I discovered my husband was NOT content to sprinkle his packet of special spices on his ramen. Oh no. He had to IMPROVE upon the ramen. Feeling entirely out of my realm here (but allowing that he was much, much older, and maybe that's just what old people his age were doing) I was intrigued by his creations, but never so much that I felt the need to sample them. You see, my bizarre boyfriend (and future bizarre husband) would add just about anything to his ramen including, but not limited to, Taco Bell hot sauce, chili, tuna, cream cheese, nacho cheese, shredded cheese, rice, and Fritos. To this day, I still cringe when i see him anywhere near a pack of ramen. 

You would think once you leave college and become a real adult (not the college kind of real adult), you would be well off enough that Ramen is no longer necessary and you consider sending cases of it to Sally Struthers. But.....imagine the adult's surprise when ramen becomes the first thing a growing child learns and then quickly craves to make for himself. Yes, every one of my children have become ramen afficionados. Where they serve theirs in a tupperware from the microwave and smash the block of noodles into smithereens rather than cook into whole long noodles, my children are Ramen Rats, destined to follow in their father's footsteps. All the signs are there: The tiny slivers of foil and a smidgen of unknown spices on my counter, the hard little crinkly pieces of noodle I see, find, and step on all throughout the kitchen, the half a wrapper that never quite makes it into the garbage can. I see this all through a mother's eyes, meaning I know I should stop buying the crap for them, but at least they're fending for themselves, and really that's all any parent wants from their children these days: The reassurance that they will, SOMEDAY, leave the nest and, God willing, it won't be a round trip ticket.