Noodles Quotes

“OH KYO KUN! Isn't it said that eating pink noodles turns you into a horny pervert?!”
― Natsuki Takaya, Fruits Basket, Vol. 8

“I've got nothing to offer you kids but these noodles. They're good noodles but they won't change the world.”
― Madeleine Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing

“Every dish I cooked exhumed a memory. Every scent and taste brought me back for a moment to an unravaged home. Knife-cut noodles in chicken broth took me back to lunch at Myeondong Gyoja after an afternoon of shopping, the line so long it filled a flight of stairs, extended out the door, and wrapped around the building. The kalguksu so dense from the rich beef stock and starchy noodles it was nearly gelatinous. My mother ordering more and more refills of their famously garlic-heavy kimchi. My aunt scolding her for blowing her nose in public.
Crispy Korean fried chicken conjured bachelor nights with Eunmi. Licking oil from our fingers as we chewed on the crispy skin, cleansing our palates with draft beer and white radish cubes as she helped me with my Korean homework. Black-bean noodles summoned Halmoni slurping jjajangmyeon takeout, huddled around a low table in the living room with the rest of my Korean family.
I drained an entire bottle of oil into my Dutch oven and deep-fried pork cutlets dredged in flour, egg, and panko for tonkatsu, a Japanese dish my mother used to pack in my lunch boxes. I spent hours squeezing the water from boiled bean sprouts and tofu and spooning filling into soft, thin dumpling skins, pinching the tops closed, each one slightly closer to one of Maangchi's perfectly uniform mandu.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“In Taipei we had oyster omelets and stinky tofu at Shilin Night Market and discovered what is arguably the world's greatest noodle soup, Taiwanese beef noodle, chewy flour noodles served with hefty chunks of stewed shank and a meaty broth so rich it's practically a gravy. In Beijing we trekked a mile in six inches of snow to eat spicy hot pot, dipping thin slivers of lamb, porous wheels of crunchy lotus root, and earthy stems of watercress into bubbling, nuclear broth packed with chiles and Sichuan peppercorns. In Shanghai we devoured towers of bamboo steamers full of soup dumplings, addicted to the taste of the savory broth gushing forth from soft, gelatinous skins. In Japan we slurped decadent tonkotsu ramen, bit cautiously into steaming takoyaki topped with dancing bonito flakes and got hammered on whisky highballs.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“I go to one of my favorite Instagram profiles, the.korean.vegan, and I watch her last video, in which she makes peach-topped tteok. The Korean vegan, Joanne, cooks while talking about various things in her life. As she splits open a peach, she explains why she gave up meat. As she adds lemon juice, brown sugar, nutmeg, a pinch of salt, cinnamon, almond extract, maple syrup, then vegan butter and vegan milk and sifted almond and rice flour, she talks about how she worried about whitewashing her diet, about denying herself a fundamental part of her culture, and then about how others don't see her as authentically Korean since she is a vegan. I watch other videos by Joanne, soothed by her voice into feeling human myself, and into craving the experiences of love she talks of and the food she cooks as she does.
I go to another profile, and watch a person's hands delicately handle little knots of shirataki noodles and wash them in cold water, before placing them in a clear oden soup that is already filled with stock-boiled eggs, daikon, and pure white triangles of hanpen. Next, they place a cube of rice cake in a little deep-fried tofu pouch, and seal the pouch with a toothpick so it looks like a tiny drawstring bag; they place the bag in with the other ingredients. "Every winter my mum made this dish for me," a voice says over the video, "just like how every winter my grandma made it for my mum when she was a child." The person in the video is half Japanese like me, and her name is Mei; she appears on the screen, rosy cheeked, chopsticks in her hand, and sits down with her dish and eats it, facing the camera.
Food means so much in Japan. Soya beans thrown out of temples in February to tempt out demons before the coming of spring bring the eater prosperity and luck; sushi rolls eaten facing a specific direction decided each year bring luck and fortune to the eater; soba noodles consumed at New Year help time progress, connecting one year to the next; when the noodles snap, the eater can move on from bad events from the last year. In China too, long noodles consumed at New Year grant the eater a long life. In Korea, when rice-cake soup is eaten at New Year, every Korean ages a year, together, in unison. All these things feel crucial to East Asian identity, no matter which country you are from.”
― Claire Kohda, Woman, Eating

“Our neighborhood ramen place was called Aoba. That's a joke. There were actually more than fifty ramen places with in walking distance of our apartment. But this one was our favorite.
Aoba makes a wonderful and unusual ramen with a mixture of pork and fish broth. The noodles are firm and chewy, and the pork tender and almost smoky, like ham. I also liked how they gave us a small bowl for sharing with Iris without our even asking.
What I really appreciated about this place, however, were two aspects of ramen that I haven't mentioned yet: the eggs and the dipping noodles. After these two, I will stop, but there's so much more to ramen. Would someone please write an English-language book about ramen? Real ramen, not how to cook with Top Ramen noodles? Thanks. (I did find a Japanese-language book called State-of-the-Art Technology of Pork Bone Ramen on Amazon. Wish-listed!)
One of the most popular ramen toppings is a soft-boiled egg. Long before sous vide cookery, ramen cooks were slow-cooking eggs to a precise doneness. Eggs for ramen (ajitsuke tamago) are generally marinated in a soy sauce mixture after cooking so the whites turn a little brown and the eggs turn a little sweet and salty. I like it best when an egg is plunked whole into the broth so I can bisect it with my chopsticks and reveal the intensely orange, barely runny yolk. A cool egg moistened with rich broth is alchemy. Forget the noodles; I want a ramen egg with a little broth for breakfast.
Finding hot and cold in the same mouthful is another hallmark of Japanese summer food, and many ramen restaurants, including Aoba, feature it in the form of tsukemen, dipping noodles. Tsukemen is deconstructed ramen, a bowl of cold cooked noodles and a smaller bowl of hot, ultra-rich broth and toppings. The goal is to lift a tangle of noodles with your chopsticks and dip them in the bowl of broth on the way to your mouth. This is a crazy way to eat noodles and, unless you've been inculcated with the principles of noodle-slurping physics from birth, a great way to ruin your clothes.”
― Matthew Amster-Burton, Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo

“Tender poached egg. Creamy mashed potatoes. And the thick layer of hot, melted cheese!
Those are all incredibly delicious, but what takes the cake is the roux! It's been made in a VICHYSSOISE style!"
VICHYSSOISE
Boiled potatoes, onions, leeks and other ingredients are pureed with cream and soup stock to make this potage. It's often served chilled.
Its creation is generally credited to Louis Diat, a French chef at the Ritz Carlton in New York, who first put it on the hotel's menu in 1917.
"Amazing! It looks like a thick, heavy dish that would sit in the stomach like lead, but it's so easy to eat!"
"The noodles! It's the udon noodles, along with the coriander powder, that makes it feel so much lighter!
Coriander is known for its fresh, almost citrusy scent and its mildly spicy bite. It goes exceptionally well with the cumin kneaded into the noodles, each spice working to heighten the other's fragrance.
AAAH!
It's immensely satisfying!"
"I have also included dill, vichyssoise's traditional topping. Dry roasting the dill seeds together with the cumin seeds made a spice mix that gave a strong aroma to the roux."
"Hm! Fat noodles in a thick, creamy roux. Eating them is much the same experience as having dipping noodles.
What an amazing concept to arrive at from a century-old French soup recipe!”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 7 [Shokugeki no Souma 7]

“What to eat? You've crossed a dozen time zones to get here and you want to make every meal count. Do you start at an izakaya, a Japanese pub, and eat raw fish and grilled chicken parts and fried tofu, all washed down with a river of cold sake? Do you seek out the familiar nourishment of noodles- ramen, udon, soba- and let the warmth and beauty of this cuisine slip gloriously past your lips? Or maybe you wade into the vast unknown, throw yourself entirely into the world of unfamiliar flavors: a bowl of salt-roasted eel, a mound of sticky fermented soybeans, a nine-course kaiseki feast.”
― Matt Goulding, Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture

“In theory, toppings can include almost anything, but 95 percent of the ramen you consume in Japan will be topped with chashu, Chinese-style roasted pork. In a perfect world, that means luscious slices of marinated belly or shoulder, carefully basted over a low temperature until the fat has rendered and the meat collapses with a hard stare. Beyond the pork, the only other sure bet in a bowl of ramen is negi, thinly sliced green onion, little islands of allium sting in a sea of richness. Pickled bamboo shoots (menma), sheets of nori, bean sprouts, fish cake, raw garlic, and soy-soaked eggs are common constituents, but of course there is a whole world of outlier ingredients that make it into more esoteric bowls, which we'll get into later.
While shape and size will vary depending on region and style, ramen noodles all share one thing in common: alkaline salts. Called kansui in Japanese, alkaline salts are what give the noodles a yellow tint and allow them to stand up to the blistering heat of the soup without degrading into a gummy mass. In fact, in the sprawling ecosystem of noodle soups, it may be the alkaline noodle alone that unites the ramen universe: "If it doesn't have kansui, it's not ramen," Kamimura says.
Noodles and toppings are paramount in the ramen formula, but the broth is undoubtedly the soul of the bowl, there to unite the disparate tastes and textures at work in the dish. This is where a ramen chef makes his name. Broth can be made from an encyclopedia of flora and fauna: chicken, pork, fish, mushrooms, root vegetables, herbs, spices. Ramen broth isn't about nuance; it's about impact, which is why making most soup involves high heat, long cooking times, and giant heaps of chicken bones, pork bones, or both.
Tare is the flavor base that anchors each bowl, that special potion- usually just an ounce or two of concentrated liquid- that bends ramen into one camp or another. In Sapporo, tare is made with miso. In Tokyo, soy sauce takes the lead. At enterprising ramen joints, you'll find tare made with up to two dozen ingredients, an apothecary's stash of dried fish and fungus and esoteric add-ons. The objective of tare is essentially the core objective of Japanese food itself: to pack as much umami as possible into every bite.”
― Matt Goulding, Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture

“These soba noodles have gone beyond simply attractive into the realm of sexiness. They look as soft and smooth as the skin of a beautiful lady.”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 25 [Shokugeki no Souma 25]

“ These noodles are so supple and chewy it's difficult to believe they're 90 percent buckwheat!
The sweet taste of buckwheat blooms in the mouth like a fragile flower. What a wondrously delicate flavor!
That does it. I'm having soba noodles for dinner tonight!
"Now for the tempura shrimp!"
How light and crispy! The sakura shrimp are pleasantly crunchy, while their tempura shell is airy and crispy! I can easily distinguish the texture and deliciousness of each individual shrimp in every bite!
The crispy crunch of the tempura shrimp and the sleek smoothness of the noodles make for an excellent contrast in textures.
Even after I've swallowed a bite, the sweetly savory aftertaste of the sakura shrimp lingers in the mouth like a perfume.”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 25 [Shokugeki no Souma 25]

“I can smell the shrimp broth and garlic!
Mmm! It's so good! It's light yet has a deep, full-bodied flavor!"
"Whoa! I've been eating all day, but this goes right down!"
" Mm! This is the perfect finisher for the day!"
"And the topping is the bun's pork filling!"
"Yep! Listening to customer requests last night gave me the inspiration to try this out."
"Thanks to these noodles, we sold a whole lot more today than yesterday."
"Using bun dough to make noodles... how interesting!
And to come up with it on the spot too..."
"Nah, I didn't really.
See, Taiwan already has a noodle dish a lot like it."
"...?
Dan Zai Noodles!"
DAN ZAI NOODLES
Originating in Southern Taiwan, it is also known as Tan-tsu noodles or slack season noodles.
The broth is generally light and clear, made from seafood stocks like bonito or shrimp.
Then oil noodles are added and topped with items like ground pork, green onions, bean sprouts and shrimp.
Served in small snack-sized portions, it was created with the idea of being a tasty snack that could be eaten over and over.”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 15 [Shokugeki no Souma 15]

“ What is Gosetsu Udon, you ask?
Meaning "snowy noodles," it is a local specialty from Kutchan, Hokkaido, one of the snowiest places on Earth!
The Kutchan region is a big producer of potatoes, and one of the most famous kinds they grow is the extra mealy and starchy Irish Cobbler Potato, also called Danshaku.
It's from that potato that Gosetsu Udon Noodles are made!
In fact, Gosetsu Udon Noodles are 95 percent starch!
First, boil the potatoes, and then peel them...
Mash them until they're smooth and fluffy...
Then add water, salt and flour to make the dough!
"There wasn't enough flour left for us to use. But thankfully...
... there were a few bags of this still available!"
Potato starch! That was meant to be used for dusting cutting boards and table surfaces when making handmade noodles!
It's not normally used as an ingredient in noodles... but as it's potato starch, that changes when it comes to potato noodles!
Acting as the glue holding the noodles together, it also adds that extra starchiness for making the finished noodles that much chewier! ”
― Yūto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 21 [Shokugeki no Souma 21]

“This broth! How can it be this rich and mellow?! It's just creamy enough to go perfectly with the noodles too! And this savory flavor! It's so deep and expansive!"
"I grated some potato and added it to the stock. That's what's giving the broth its creaminess.
Believe it or not, the potato is another vegetable that contains the umami compound glutamic acid.
That compound seeped out into the broth, giving it it's rich and savory flavor.
Plus, I only grated the potato roughly, so there are still little beads of potato in the broth, giving the texture some interesting highlights."
"But what about this topping? What is it?!
Hnngh! I knew it! Imo-Mochi Potato Cakes! They're soft and chewy on the inside and crisp and crunchy on the outside!"
Imo-Mochi Potato Cakes are another Hokkaido specialty.
Made with potatoes and potato starch, they're a popular treat with tourists.
The heavy, chewy potato cakes soaked in the creamy broth are a pleasing textural contrast...
... to the light and sleek udon noodles while also giving the dish an extra sense of fullness and satisfaction!
"Unbelievable.
It's almost as if this one dish...
... contains all the expressions of a potato possible in cooking!"
"Exactly! Y'see, this dish---"
"This dish uses all facets of the Irish Cobbler Potato, accenting its starch, its unique texture and its umami goodness.
In fact, it can be considered the ultimate in potato-noodle dishes!”
― Yūto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 21 [Shokugeki no Souma 21]

“Zucchini pasta with chicken and lemon," Melanie says. "I'm using whole-grain linguini, and the zucchini is shredded in long strips the same size as the noodles. Half real noodles, half zucchini noodles, so everything twirls the same on your fork, but you halve the carbs and cut down the calories significantly." She grabs a tasting spoon and lets me taste the chicken, simmering gently in a rich lemony sauce.
"That is amazing. So light and fresh, but still depth in flavor."
"I love this recipe, especially in the winter like this; it just tastes like spring to me.”
― Stacey Ballis, Off the Menu

“As Yasu popped open a giant Kirin- the champagne of Japanese beers- Tomiko placed bowls of special buckwheat noodle soup at everyone's place, since the noodles represent long life. They are also said to bring prosperity, because in the past silversmiths and goldsmiths used to pick up the scraps of metal in their workshops with soba noodle dough. A salty seafood vapor wafted up from my soup bowl, holding a wobbly poached egg in a nest of gray noodles. A pink wheat gluten flower and sprig of Japanese chervil lay submerged in the hot dashi broth, along with two round slices of kamaboko, the springy sweet fish paste eaten all over Japan.”
― Victoria Abbott Riccardi, Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto

“Miss Kinokuni used once-milled flour for her noodles. They had a light and fluffy sweetness with a pleasing chewiness and a silky-smooth texture. It was a flavor so delicate and refined it made all three of us feel as if we had ascended to heaven after only a single bite.
Conversely, Mr. Yukihira chose thrice-milled flour. Compared to once-milled flour, it has a much coarser texture making for rougher noodles with a harsher scent...
but as it's made from the outermost parts of the groat, including their hulls, it packs the strongest buckwheat flavor of all three types of flour!"
Had Mr. Yukihira chosen to use once-milled flour for his noodles, frying them as he did would certainly have destroyed their delicate flavor. But because he chose thrice milled, which comes with the most powerful flavor...
... even frying the noodles in a hot wok wasn't enough to smother their buckwheaty goodness!
That is precisely what allowed him to masterfully construct such a delicious flavor! ”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 25 [Shokugeki no Souma 25]

“Laksa curry, did you say? That is a Southeast Asian dish known for its exceptionally slippery noodles. And I expect squid ink was used to give the roux this black color."
"But this utterly repulsive and vomit-inducing stench! Don't tell me you used-"
"Yes. It's Kusaya."
"I KNEW IT! What kind of garbage does this girl think goes in food?!"
KUSAYA
Salted dried fish, it originated in the Izu Islands. Blueback fish, like mackerel or flying fish, are soaked in a salty, sticky brine called Kusaya Jiru and then sun dried.
IT REEKS.
"Just grilling the stuff is enough to get you a pile of complaints from all your neighbors!"
"Ugh. Boiling it down makes the stench even more repugnant."
"This is my special handmade Kusaya! I used flying fish and mahi-mahi...
... and then soaked them in Kusaya Jiru I carefully, preciously refined over and over!”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 7 [Shokugeki no Souma 7]

“Noodles arrived in Japan with Buddhist monks from China in the Middle Ages, but until the twentieth century they tended to be made from buckwheat, or a mix of wheat and rice.”
― Bee Wilson, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat

“One giant bowl of perfectly cooked ramen in rich, golden pork broth, densely packed with noodles and with an egg, boiled to just the right degree of softness, perched on top, beneath a sprinkling of bright, crunchy green scallions. She could almost taste it, and feel it in her mouth, the rich glide of egg yolk, the chewy, toothsome tangle of noodles, the sharp bite of scallion, and the comforting warmth of the broth, as salty as the ocean.”
― Jennifer Weiner, That Summer

“Let's do snacks."
And snacks, we did. We consumed japchae, stir-fried sweet potato noodles with shredded veggies and beef, that were sweet and savory and wonderfully chewy. Ddukbokki, chewy cylinders of rice cake, soft and springy cakes of sweet ground fish, more veggies, and sweet and spicy gochujang sauce. Soondae, a sausage stuffed with noodles, barley, and pig blood, which I had to say gave me slight pause (and made my Jewish grandmother shriek with terror), but which had the most interesting mix of textures. We cleansed our palates with hobakjuk, a porridge made from glutinous rice and the sweetest steamed pumpkin I'd ever tasted, and finished up with hotteok, sweet, crunchy fried pancakes filled with cinnamon, honey, brown sugar, and peanuts.”
― Amanda Elliot, Sadie on a Plate

“The noodle/worm idea was appealing to me. I hadn't made pasta in the competition yet. And noodle kugel was a traditional Jewish dish that held tight to my heart... and could also be made to look extremely disturbing. To be honest, it could be a little gross-looking on the best of days. Noodles submerged in a creamy cheese base, some of them sticking up top to get crispy in the oven. Raisins or other fruits flecking the kugel like little bugs. Maybe I could make the whole thing graveyard-themed.
If I was going to make something so rich and heavy and creamy, my other dish should balance it out by being light and savory. And spooky, of course. Maybe organ meats? Chicken feet were extremely scary-looking, maybe with some kind of beet sauce...”
― Amanda Elliot, Sadie on a Plate

“I'd used vegetable dyes to color the entire thing a purple so deep it was almost black, the effect of which was fairly unappetizing... but perfect for Halloween, I hoped. I'd turned up the richness of the filling, aiming for a luxurious mouthfeel without being sickening, and made the whole thing more savory, dialing back on the sugar and adding garlic and onion and lots of fresh herbs to cut through the richness. I then rolled bites of it in a potato chip crust and deep-fried them, which sounded bizarre but worked. At least, I thought so. I held my breath as the judges crunched in and chewed thoughtfully.
"I love this." Lenore Smith was blunt as always. "It's bizarre, but in all the best ways. The inside is melty and rich and savory, and the outside is perfectly crunchy and salty. It makes me think of an arancini."
I was familiar with the fried Italian risotto balls, but I hadn't connected them to my dish until now.”
― Amanda Elliot, Sadie on a Plate

“Hmm... the noodles are good. I can taste the flour; their scent and flavor are clear, not masked by the smell of kansui.
Ah, this is good broth. You used only chicken to make it.
You did well with the condiments, too. You cannot get such a rich flavor unless you use condiments made from pure ingredients.
And I see you used Chinese vinegar.
Hmm. This barbecued pork is well made. It's Kurobuta from the Kagoshima prefecture that has been fed properly on sweet potatoes.
The cucumber was organically grown, without pesticides or even herbicides.
This egg is impressive too. Only a chicken that has been properly grass-fed in a healthy environment can lay an egg this good.”
― Tetsu Kariya, Ramen and Gyoza

“I thought you said these were Chinese-style noodles...
...so I was expecting something with pork spareribs on top.
The fish dumpling noodles in Hong Kong are good...
but I've never seen anything like this in China.
What's this on the top?"
"Barbecued pork made from Berkshire boar, and jakoten."
" 'Jakoten'? "
"It's a specialty from the Shikoku prefecture. They're fish cakes made from ground sardines and deep-fried in oil.
They're nutritious and taste good too."
"Sardines, is it?"
"Ah, this barbecued pork is completely different from Chinese-style barbecued pork!"
"And this soup?"
"I made the stock with pork bones and flying fish yakiboshi...
... and boosted the flavor with some miso and soy sauce.
I don't use any MSG in it."
"Hmm... the combination of pork bones and yakiboshi isn't something that a Chinese chef would have thought of."
"I've never tasted a soup like this before!"
"The noodles have no kansui in them. After kneading the dough with eggs...
... I let it rest for a whole week."
"Mmm... they're firm and flavorful!"
"I haven't seen noodles like this in China either!"
"The aged noodles taste so good!”
― Tetsu Kariya, Ramen and Gyoza

“The day is brittle
as instant noodles
I despise.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Everything is okay. These will be very merry noodles.”
― Eireann Corrigan, Remedy