🍜 Noodles

Noodles are long, thin strips of dough that are boiled in water or broth, fried, or simply soaked in hot water. The dough is made from wheat, rice or buckwheat flour, and clear glass noodles are made from starch. Japanese labelling rules define fresh noodles as products based on wheat flour or the flour of other grains.

The oldest known noodles were found by archaeologists in a sealed earthenware bowl at the Lajia site in north-western China. They are about 4,000 years old and made from millet, which starch grains and phytoliths revealed. The authors of the find note that it is still debated whether the Chinese, the Italians or the Arabs invented noodles first.

By raw material, noodles fall into a few large families. Wheat noodles are made either with the alkaline water kansui, like ramen, or without it, like udon and somen. Rice noodles are the base of pad thai. Buckwheat noodles are Japanese soba, which must contain at least 30 % buckwheat flour. Starch noodles are thin clear threads such as Longkou Fen Si, made from mung bean or pea starch.

Japanese rules even tell wheat noodles apart by thickness: dried noodles 1.7 mm or more across are udon, 1.3 to 1.7 mm hiyamugi, and below 1.3 mm somen. Noodles made with kansui may be called chūka men, Chinese noodles, and ramen belongs to this group.

Instant noodles form a family of their own. Momofuku Ando invented them: Chicken Ramen went on sale in Japan on 25 August 1958, followed by Cup Noodles in a cup in 1971. According to the World Instant Noodles Association (WINA), the world eats more than 120 billion servings a year, most of them in China with Hong Kong, Indonesia and India.

Rules also separate noodles from pasta. The Codex standard for instant noodles explicitly does not cover pasta. In Japan, fresh macaroni and spaghetti are separate categories made from high-protein flour and pressed at high pressure, while fresh udon is simply wheat flour kneaded with water.

Why it matters to you. Noodles vary a lot, so read the label. Soba often contains wheat and therefore gluten; in Japan buckwheat and wheat are separate mandatory allergens. Instant noodles can be salty: dry Cup Noodles Chicken (US) has 4.53 g of salt per 100 g, about 2.9 g in one 64 g cup, while the WHO advises adults to eat less than 5 g of salt a day.