The Adventures of Top Ramen, the Amazing No-cook, Deep-Fried Noodle*

We all looked with trepidation as Ann rolled the food cart into class last Thursday. Sure, it had the usual spread of teas and hot water, as well as some really delicious looking lemon bars, courtesy of Teresa. But we were all glancing at the lower shelf. Bright red and orange packaging drew our eyes. Were we hallucinating? Or was Ann really going to make us eat Ramen Noodles and Diet Coke in our food class?

Ann asked us all to take a sample of the foods and to do a taste test. Not just eat them, she said, but taste them. Really observe what it is about the texture and the flavor that makes this food up... OK. The first thing I noted was that I would be preparing the Ramen differently than I normally do. I usually boil water, and drop the block of noodles in for about 5 minutes while the water continues to boil. Then I drain them, put them in a bowl, and sprinkle the seasoning on and mix with a fork. Today, I would be eating the noodles like "normal" people do - adding the flavor packet to the noodles, covering them with hot water and letting them soften for three minutes. So, though I had Ramen almost every day as a child and have it about once a week now as a college student, this would be a new experience.

The texture was very chewy - almost like calamari, actually. These noodles hadn't had time to be fully cooked (or rather, softened - Ramen noodles are already deep-fat-fried before they're packaged), and thus were not soft. The springy texture was accompanied by a very subtle flavor... a non-flavor, actually. Since I was not using a full block of noodles, I used very little of the seasoning packet. However, I had covered this yellow powder in water, thereby making a kind of broth - I guess the way you're "supposed" to make it. And it was very... blah. I'm used to a sharp zing with the first bite of my chicken-flavored-powder-covered noodles, and it wasn't there this time. It tasted very neutral, almost more neutral than water. Like this was my tongue's natural taste.

My reaction was a lot different from most people in the class, and I think it's because of the way I prepared my noodles... who knew there were so many different ways to make them?!? But I remember and understand what they were talking about... the jolt of spice and tang, followed by a homey, chicken-y taste... but is that really the way chicken tastes? We talked about this, about the way that chicken-flavored products actually taste nothing like chicken. They have been chickenized, and in consuming these products since the moment of our birth, my generation has been chickenized. I actually don't know if I've ever had real chicken broth by itself. My mother has used it in cooking, but I don't think I've ever had it on its own. The only chicken soup I've ever had is from Campbell's, Progresso, or Top Ramen. And this chicken-y flavor hardly bears resemblence to the taste of the whole roast chicken I had last week. However, it does give reminder of the chicken-n-a-biscuit crackers I ate when I was little... and of chicken nuggets. And all other manner of chickenized products that came before and after the ramen. But does it taste anything like the feathered, clucking bird portrayed on the packaging? No.

I also found it very interesting that there were a handful of people who had never eaten Top Ramen before. Never. In their entire lives. This was so hard for me to fathom, because I grew up LIKING the stuff. There was one summer in particular... I think I had to be about 9 or so... I would go over to my friend Sarah's house every single morning. We would play for a few hours, eat lunch and watch a movie, then go outside and play again until my Mom called me home. And every day... every single day, we ate Top Ramen for lunch. Sarah would boil the water, and then we would each make the big decision... Chicken, Pork, Beef, Shrimp, or Oriental? And we would prepare it in the manner I described above, fully cooking and then draining the noodles before adding the pungent flakes and powder of our selected meat. (Which, by the way, begs a question - what do Orientals taste like?)

Anyway, it boggled my mind that there were people who had never eaten Ramen, when I was clearly raised on the stuff. And, after forgetting about it for about 10 years, I came to college and rediscovered it as the meal you don't have to really cook. But several students in my class said that their parents never gave it to them, and that they'd never tried it, even after they came to college. I suspect that it's a class issue. My family wasn't poor, but we certainly weren't rich. We lived in a duplex and then rented housing until I was 7 years old, but we always were working with my Dad's U.S. Navy salary. It wasn't until he made Chief when I was about 10 that we got more money, enough to be significantly choosier about our food. And that was probably about the time that the $0.20 blocks of starch disappeared from our cupboard. But I suppose there are people out there who have never been exposed to this. They're the same people who grow up eating vegetable plates and hummus for snacks. They're the same people who, now grown, feed their kids organic apples and Starbucks nonfat hot chocolate. But for those of us who didn't grow up that way, for those of us whose parents want to but can't afford to feed us those things... what is left?

Comfort me, please

I realized when I went out to dinner last night that I forgot a category in my brief run-down of the various technologies of health: Comfort Eating.

I'd been having a pretty bad week (a bad month, actually), so when my friend Chloe came to pick me up for our weekly Wednesday night dinner, she suggested that we go to my favorite restaurant, the Broadway Bar and Grill, a place famous for their comfort food. On our walk to the bus stop, I found a 20-dollar bill - a whole 20! - staring up at me from the pavement. So I picked it up and looked around to see if anyone had dropped it. But there was no one around us who had just crossed that section of sidewalk. Chloe and I decided that it was a sign from the heavens, and decided then and there to spend the money on fancy drinks we wouldn't have otherwise been able to buy. And thus the evening went from one of comfort food to one of comfort food and drink... a dionysian feast, if you will.

So what did this comfort-food feast consist of? Actually, we were very true to the typical comforting fare. Chloe and I split a bowl of the house soup, which is a tremendously creamy, rich, delicious blend of chicken, red beans, broccoli, and cheese. After allowing a few cocktails to comfort us further, we indulged in greasy goodness: Chloe had the breakfast scramble, and I had fried chicken with mashed potatoes and sauteed vegetables. And it was terrific - so delicious that I stuffed myself long after I was full. And of course then I felt guilty for eating so much of such a fattening food - but still terribly satisfied by the taste and feeling that lingered. And this led me to ask, why is it that certain foods are commonly identified as "comfort food?"

When I think of comfort food, I typically think of carby, starchy, fatty, sugary, greasy yummy food. Most people tend to agree. Sure, there are exceptions - certain people might really find chicken broth and celery sticks comforting. I'm sure there's someone out there who feels that way, and it's likely because there is some sort of childhood link or conditioned response that involves that particular food item. Many scientists think that psychological association is the main operator behind Comfort Food. And I'm sure that they're (at least partially) right - foods from childhood are familiar, and the familiar is comforting.

There's also the issue of conditioned response. I know that for me, cookies and milk are a special sort of comfort food. When I had bad dreams when I was little, I would go wake my mother up. She would put on her robe and slippers and lead me out to the kitchen, where she would pour two glasses of milk and put out a plate of cookies, and she would ask me about my dream. After perhaps twenty minutes I was calm, I had begun to realize that the dream was not real, and I would become drowsy because of the milk. So Mom would put the dishes in the sink and tuck me back into bed, and my bad dream was forgotten. So even now, I have cookies and milk when I have difficulty sleeping - it is one of my comfort foods because I have been conditioned to crave it.

However, it is puzzling that people have so many comfort foods in common. Why is it that almost everyone identifies mashed potatoes as a comfort food? Is it because everyone has a personal childhood association with the mutilated tuber? Or is it that greasy, sugary, fatty, starchy foods are inherently more comforting?

Science has several theories. In his article Comfort Food and You, David Lin briefly discusses the possible explanations of comfort foods' physical effects on the body. One of the most popular is that the consumption of carbohydrates increases the levels of serotonin (the 'happiness' neurotransmitter) in the brain. Others suggest that fatty foods register feelings of fullness and satiety more quickly than other foods, and that this, combined with the fat itself, produce an analgesic effect on the eater. Still others claim that it is simply the oral palatability of fatty and sugary foods that we respond to.

Honestly? I think that most of the comforting effects of Comfort Food spring from psychological associations. The fact that you are consuming a food that it almost universally recognized as Comfort Food would likely cause you to perceive a change in mood. But regardless, I am glad that these foods exist to quell the negativity of the week, and I'm sure next week I will curse them for what they have done to my waistline.

Why am I eating?*

"Technologies of health" sounds like a referent to medical science or a vitamin company. But in the article Purity, Soul Food, and Sunni Islam: Explorations at the Intersection of Consumption and Resistance, Carolyn Rouse and Janet Hoskins explore "technologies of health." Specifically, they look at the ways that African-American Sunni Muslims employ various technologies of health in order to render certain things taboo. That is, they eat. They eat, and they do not eat, and they cook and prepare and taste and share food, and in doing so, they set up a system, something Foucault calls an "authoring [of] novel subversive practices and desires." I'll simplify it incredibly and say that people go on diets, whether they recognize it as a structured program or not, and thereby create a lens through with to see the world of food - generally dividing things into "good" and "bad."

In class we began to tease apart this idea by sharing from our own experiences. Several girls in class admitted to past tendancies to limit food intake in order to achieve a certain body type - that of a ballerina. And we began to separate food consumption into several categories: hunger eating, pleasure eating, zombie eating, social eating, and I'll throw in another category that I'll call obligatory eating.

• Hunger Eating: When you eat because you're genuinely hungry - when your stomach is growling and you feel weak and all of your hunger signals become apparent. Oddly enough, we (and I'm generalizing about much of the Western world now) almost never eat out of hunger. I have a hunch that very few people are at all in touch with their hunger mechanism - we've forgotten what it is to be hungry, because we almost always eat to satisfy some other need, never allowing ourselves to reach the point of hunger. Only those who do not have the means to do this, whose food supplies are not enough to meet their need, likely know what hunger is.
• Pleasure Eating: the convivial, enjoyable, drink some wine, nibble some food, drizzle some sauce, linger three hours over lunch kind of eating. Not that this is the only version of pleasure eating. I'm sure some people get pleasure out of a much less french-style situation than the one I've painted here. But the point is that pleasure-eaters are not eating because they need the nutrients. They eat to please their senses, to enjoy the taste, smell, and sight of the food.
• Zombie Eating: eating out of boredom. This is what my Mom always yelled at me for: wandering around the house with nothing to do, inevitably my search for entertainment by standing in front of the refrigerator, cold air on my face. Zombie eaters are almost in a trance, grabbing at any sort of food (though preferably something carb-y) to pass the time.
• Social Eating: consuming food as part of a social activity. Now this overlaps a lot with the other categories, for our eating is almost always social. But social eating is what causes us to eat much of the time. Honestly, it would probably be a lot easier to lose weight if I knew I could see my friends and not share a meal. But social events always seem to involve food - lunch, dinner, coffee, drinks, snacks, baking, etc. I don't know if my friends and I are even capeable of meeting and not eating...
• Obligatory Eating: this is something we didn't cover in class, but something that I think a lot of people have experienced at one time or another. Obligatory eating happens whenever you realize that you do not want food, but are somehow pressured into eating it anyway. This happens a lot to little kids: "Clean your plate! There are starving people in China!" You eat because you don't want to waste food. You eat because you don't want to seem disrespectful. You eat the fattening donut because your friend ordered one, too. You eat the ice cream because Mom bought it. You order a coffee because you have a 20 minute break. Like social eating, obligatory eating overlaps a lot with other categories.

So what is the point of all of this? I'm not sure. But simply seeing how complicated our eating habits are is amazing - and definitely makes me feel less silly about calling it a "technology of eating."

"The Future of Food" - a rant*

So I watched the film The Future of Food today for Anth class. Well, I watched most of it. After being unable to check the reserved copy out of the media centre, I streamed about an hour and 20 minutes of the film before I had to go to work. But upon attempting to finish the film over my home computer's somewhat slower connection, I found myself frustrated and without closure - so if any of the following questions or remarks might be answered in the film's last 20 minutes, I'm sorry! I'm ill-informed.

I found that a large part of the film echoed the information and sentiments presented in Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, which we are also reading for this class. But one thing that I found truly interesting and disturbing that was not presented in Pollan's account was the issue of seed patents.

The ability to patent "life" in any form has been historically restricted in the U.S. on moral grounds. Now, normally I'm not big on pressing my morals on anyone, nor am I a big supporter of the U.S. limiting what its citizens can and cannot do. However. The film made me feel that there is perhaps some logic to the argument in this particular instance. With the advent of GMOs in the 1970s, the issue of patents for some "life products" (aka seeds) began to seem reasonable. So the U.S. patent office made it possible to obtain a patent for your seeds if you could prove that they were effectively different from others available. Now I get a little fuzzy with the logistics here, but I think that this phrase was interpreted loosely, in a manner that allowed one to patent any type of seed, as long as it did not already have a patent. So this big herbicide/seed company, Monsanto (which I keep wanting to call Montesano, like the WA county,) raided the U.S. stores of seeds, which are kept for biodiversity reasons. And they patented them. All of them. So much so that some wierd figure (I want to say 90%, but I really am not sure) of the varieties of seeds in the U.S. now "belong" to Monsanto.

And here's the kicker! Monsanto can basically go into any farmer's field, test it, and sue them if any of the seed found is identical to their patented "product." Which is absurd, because seeds are the most uncontainable product - it's like patenting hydrogen. "Oh, my, you have hydrogen in your immediate atmosphere, and I hold the patent. Pay me $100,000, and never have hydrogen in your proximity ever again!" I mean, how are the farmers supposed to stop stray seed from entering their fields when it is carried by the wind or animals? Is every farmer who doesn't use Monsanto seed expected to erect a fine-guage mesh structure around their property? Basically, Monsanto (and the U.S. Supreme Court, thanks to their ruling) are telling small farmers that they have no choice but to purchase seed from this large company, because no matter what they do, they will inevitably be in violation of patent laws.

After viewing the film and being thrown by this, I asked my roommate, Kim, what she thought. Kim is in her first year of Law School at the UW and is interested in intellectual property law... so of course she would know more about this issue! And she basically told me that yes, under the structure of patent laws, the Supreme Court's decision makes perfect (but unjust) sense. Because if you designed a toaster, but found out later that it was unintentionally the same one that had already been patented, you would be in the wrong. You would have to pay a fine, and would no longer be allowed to make a profit off of that kind of toaster by selling it. And that makes sense. But when applied to seeds, this logic falls to pieces... because, as previously described, nothing short of a latex bubble around your property will keep the patented seeds out.

My question is, couldn't someone have given the Supreme Court a lesson in plant biology? And what's more, could the court not take into consideration the framers' intent of patent laws, and conclude that they were not meant for application to biological products? I guess I cannot expect a bunch of gruff old men to change their minds concerning a process that has been working more or less problem free for two-hundred years or so... but I'd like to see these guys living in a bubble to make sure their flower gardens don't infringe on Monsanto's patents.

I am officially conflicted

I'm becoming one of those people that I claim to hate... well, not hate, that's rather a strong word. But I can't stand going into a place like World Market and seeing all of these people playing with and purchasing objects that they know nothing about. Many of the objects have no labels on them except something obscure about the origin, like "Flute: East Africa." Nothing about the country or village its from or the person who made it or how it is meant to be used. And that irritates me, when people just take those objects and use them without any understanding of their context, because it is "beautiful" and "exotic," and because their economic privilege gives them that access.

Photo courtesy of: SugarCharms.com

But I confess... I want a bento box! After all of our talk about them in class, and our experiences making obento both in class and at the Anthropology Open House, I now have an acute desire to possess a bento box.

Am I like one of these culture-mongerers I so detest? I know what it is that I'm buying, and I know its origin, purpose, and traditions behind it. So why is it that I feel a little weird and uncomfortable about purchasing a bento box? Am I worried that people will look at me oddly - a grown woman of 22 who doesn't look even remotely Asian, eating her lunch out of a bento box adorned with colorful cartoon characters or sparkly cherry blossoms? Or is it that I still feel this twinge of - what is the word - impropriety. I feel almost as if I'm trespassing on the institution of obento by purchasing a box for myself. Because I'm not Japanese, and I won't be packing the lunch for a small child, and often that lunch will consist of such American things as a sandwich and a bunch of grapes. Because my desire for a bento box stems from my desire for utility (realizing that the compact, portion-controlled container makes a lot more sense than several large tupperwares and a plastic grocery bag) and my desire for the exotic.

Photo courtesy of: SugarCharms.com

So should I get one? I think I will go the route of the cautious shopper. I will hold off on a purchase for awhile. Should my desire linger, I will know that I want the item enough to invest the time and money in obtaining it. However, I will likely still wonder at the appropriateness of my purchase... I suppose it cannot be avoided.

I know where I'm going when the food crisis hits...

I have discovered a new source of cheap food... dim sum! I went out to brunch last Saturday with 10 friends/acquaintences. The restaurant was called Honey Court, on 3rd and Maynard (or 2nd... 1st? ) in Seattle's International District.

This was my first Dim Sum experience, and I'll say that it was definitely an interesting learning experience. Basically, Dim Sum is a meal eaten between morning and midday, in which one drinks tea and selects from a wide variety of dishes, each served in small quantities... much like a french a la carte brunch. Tea is served in a large kettle, and nice Chinese ladies come by to offer various cakes, pastries, meatballs, rice dishes, gelatins, meat- filled pastas, and more, from a cart. We didn't know what anything was by looking... its all a little strange-looking, to be quite honest. But our host/Charlene's friend (I'm sorry, but I just cannot remember your name!), was able to interpret for us, explaining what was in each dish and how it was to be eaten.

Though most of the time, it didn't matter what he said was in it... the server would take the lid off of the dish to show us, and invariably one of the eleven people around the table would say, "oooh, yes! let's have that!" So we ended up eating. And eating. And eating. Until the "ooh, yes!" would be slower in coming and was said with a little less gusto... and until we all finally said, "alright, now, I'm done." But by the time that happened, we had already ordered:

• three rice rolls (veggie, beef, shrimp)
• two rice dumplings (veggie, shripp)
• two crispy fried shrimp dumplings
• two barbecued pork puff pastries
• two barbecued pork flake pastries
• one barbecued pork bun
• three sesame balls
• one potato cake, one pork meatball
• one rice and chicken dish.

Mind you, each of these dishes had 3-6 small servings on it! And the most amazing thing about this entire affair was the bill... only $65.76, to feed eleven people!

Possibly the best part, though, was that everyone tried a little of everything. There were no cop-out pansies in our group, no one proclaiming an allergy or an aversion to get out of eating something. Even if it looked wierd and slimy, everyone had a taste... and that was so awesome! Being able to take a bite and explore the newness with someone else, a whole table of someone-elses, at the same time... I'm definitly looking forward to doing dim sum again... and at that price, how can you resist?!?

A Mother's Love

I realized when we were making our obento in class on Thursday that while Japanese mothers might indeed prepare the obento to live up to a standard set forth by the Japanese school system and Japanese government, they also do it out of love.

My mother never spent an extraordinary amount of time molding rice balls or cutting octopodal figures out of wieners and carrots... but she did pack my lunch, and I remember there being a great amount of care involved - more than I wished she would have spent. All of the other children I went to school with seemed to have ordinary lunches: a pbj or ham sandwich, an apple, and a couple of oreos. There were times when I desperately wanted one of those ordinary lunches. But my mother was more creative than that. I would get soup in a thermos, maybe a hard-boiled egg. I remember for awhile getting breadless sandwiches in my lunch - little rolls of lunchmeat and cheese held together with toothpicks, accompanied by crackers. My mother had made these because she knew that I did not much care for bread. And she was right: I didn't like bread, and her version of a sandwich was much tastier than other moms'. But as much as I liked these breadless sandwiches, I didn't want her to make them for me. They were too different from the lunches that my classmates brought to school, and the last thing that I wanted was to be different. And perhaps - though I wasn't really conscious of this thought at the time - perhaps I didn't want it to seem that my mother cared for me as much as she did. Cool kids were more independent, and they didn't let their moms coddle them. Eventually Mom gave up and gave in, telling me to buy lunch or pack my own, and when she did pack it for me, she would make a perfectly ordinary, run-of-the-mill, boring lunch - exactly what I had asked for.

Looking back, I have a new appreciation for what my Mom did for me. Those lunches were a symbol of her creativity, her knowledge of her daughter's likes and dislikes, her devotion - exactly what the obento are for Japanese moms. I was reminded, and appreciated anew, my mother's lunchmaking ability when she packed a lunch for me last week. I had been selected to go to the Democratic county convention to select delegates to the state convention, discuss a platform, and listen to a lot of really long campaign speeches by local and state politicians. The convention would be an all-day affair, and I was supposed to bring a sack lunch. That Saturday, my mother woke up early and made me a lunch, complete with her famous crispy oatmeal cookies. She had gotten up at six AM to bake the cookies so they would be ready for my lunch... and oh, they were good, just as I had remembered them from my childhood, when she and my Nana used to make them to put in those labored-over lunches. And I realized, once again, how much my Mom loves me.

CRISPY OATMEAL COOKIES

1c. shortening

1c. brown sugar

1c. white sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 c. flour

3c. "quick" oatmeal

1 tsp vanilla

1. Combine all ingredients. Blend well. Refrigerate for 4 hours, or overnight.


2. Roll into small balls and place on a greased baking sheet a little distance apart.


3. Grease the bottom of a small glass. Dip into granulated sugar and press cookie flat. Repeat sugar dip and press for each cookie.


4. Bake at 375 degrees for ten to 12 minutes, or until light brown.