However, I am cautiously optimistic that the hardships you have endured in reading Friday's entry may be worth it. And the reason for that, is because today we are going to...
... the Nissin foods dry noodle museum!
The official name in English is "The Instant Ramen Museum", but it actually sounds significantly more impressive in Japanese - "The Instant Ramen Discovery Commemoration Museum".
Here is the chap who was responsible for all of this - Momofuku Ando.
He not only is holding some dry noodles, but he is also standing on a large pot noodle! Clearly, this man was very committed.
On the very same day I saw a bus emblazoned with the Nissin foods emblem - a little chick - surely a high auspicious sign:
The museum is free, and well laid out, with helpful directions provided by little chick (here s/he is saying "The birth of Chikin Ramen"):
Inside, you can see a time-wall of dehydrated noodles,
...including some varieties that I thought were quite rare (they have a special kind of dry noodle you can only buy in Okinawa, and at this museum, some that you can only get on an aeroplane), as well as... UFO noodles:
...and Milk Seafood Noodle:
But the real history is when you go back to 1958, when Nissin foods first started selling dehydrated noodles. They looked like this ("Chikin Ramen"):
...and then forward in time to the next breakthrough:
The cup noodle ("Capunooduru")
Next we get taken on a journey of discovery to understand Ando's concept. He had five principles based on his post war experience when he saw that many people couldn't even get noodles to eat. These were: Good taste, affordability, long-term storage, nutrition, and something else.
Here he is brandishing a microscope:
For the noodle topping, he researched sixty types of food, including Broccoli, Cheese, Ham, and others, and settled on Prawn, Egg, and Beef.
Incidentally, Ando's real inspiration for the cup noodle packaging was when he was on an American plane, and got given a tin of nuts:
There is an old-school cup noodle vending machine, some information about noodles in the space program (furnished by Nissin, of course), stats on consumption (Japan is the number two consumer behind China, and ahead of Indonesia in third place), and many other self education opportunities.
However, the main reason why people come to the museum is actually because, famously, you get to design your own noodles!
So, this being Japan, we of course have to follow a well organised and efficient plan.
Firstly you pay 300 Yen for the cup ($3). Then you wash your hands with alcohol (this already won't work in Europe). The third step is to sit down and put your own design onto your cup:
There are some handy examples, mostly featuring yellow chicks. Most people end up drawing yellow chicks.
Due to artistic limitations and other excuses, I managed an awful design:
I tried to make up for it by drawing the character for Wealth on the side for good luck in future undertakings. However, this can only help marginally if you are standing next to families with perfectly drawn cartoon characters on theirs.
Now, they have a mini-production line, where you hand over your creation and see how they make the cup noodle. You can choose between a number of flavours - Seafood, Curry, Veg, Chicken etc., and four out of about fifteen toppings:
Lastly, you get an inflatable bag to put your precious dry noodles into. Always ready to help, this chick is saying "Please take a string!".
You put the cup into the plastic bag, and pump it up.
Now, in the complex instructions on how to apply a bike pump to a plastic bag, our chick adviser says:
"Don't pump too much!"
...and this, of course, was highly tempting to use as the market message of the day.
However, there is a more serious point here. Momofuku ("One hundred Riches") Ando started development in a shed like this, and only started selling noodles when he was 48 years old. And yet became one of the most celebrated food empire geniuses of all time.
And this, I feel, reminds me of the market - slow and steady wins the race.
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