History

Origin

Ramen is a Japanese adaptation of Chinese wheat noodle soups.[11][12][13][14][15] It is first recorded to have appeared in Yokohama Chinatown in the early 20th century.[16][17] Although ramen takes its name from lamian, it did not originate from the hand-pulled lamian noodles of northern China, since the noodles used in ramen are cut, not pulled.[7] Rather, ramen is derived from southern Chinese noodle dishes such as char siu tangmian (roast pork noodle soup) from Guangdong, and rousi tangmian (sliced meat noodle soup) from Jiangnan.[18][8][6][19] This is reflective of Yokohama Chinatown's demographics, as most Chinese settlers there were Cantonese or Shanghainese.[20][21]

Sōmen is another type of noodle of Chinese origin made from wheat flour, but in Japan it is distinguished from the noodles used in ramen. The noodles used for ramen today are called chūkamen (中華麺, lit. 'Chinese noodles') and are made with kansui (鹹水, alkaline salt water).

The official diary of Shōkoku-ji Temple in Kyoto, Inryōken Nichiroku (蔭涼軒日録), mentions eating jīngdàimiàn (経帯麪), noodles with kansui, in 1488.[22][23] Jīngdàimiàn is the noodle of the Yuan dynasty. This is the earliest record of kansui noodles being eaten in Japan.

One theory says that ramen was introduced to Japan during the 1660s by the neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Shunsui, who served as an advisor to Tokugawa Mitsukuni after he became a refugee in Japan to escape Manchu rule. Mitsukuni became the first Japanese person to eat ramen. However, the noodles Mitsukuni ate were a mixture of starch made from lotus root and wheat flour, which is different from chūkamen with kansui.

According to historians, the more plausible theory is that ramen was introduced to Japan in the late 19th[11][24] or early 20th centuries by Chinese immigrants living in Yokohama Chinatown.[16][17] By 1884, lamian noodles had grown popular in Yokohama, Kobe, Nagasaki, and Hakodate, however, this popularity was mostly concentrated among Chinese immigrants and was called Nankin soba ('Nanjing noodles').[25] The Japanese government passed a law in 1899 allowing resident aliens to own businesses outside their designated settlements. This development, in addition to the increased labor demands led to a spread of Chinese immigrants throughout Japan.[25] By 1900, restaurants serving Chinese cuisine from Guangzhou and Shanghai offered a simple dish of noodles, a few toppings, and a broth flavored with salt and pork bones. Many Chinese living in Japan also pulled portable food stalls, selling ramen and gyōza dumplings to workers. By the mid-1900s, these stalls used a type of a musical horn called a charumera (チャルメラ, from the Portuguese charamela) to advertise their presence, a practice some vendors still retain via a loudspeaker and a looped recording. By the early Shōwa period, ramen had become a popular dish when eating out.

First store

According to ramen expert Hiroshi Osaki, the first specialized ramen shop was Rairaiken [ja] (来々軒), which opened in 1910 in Asakusa, Tokyo. The Japanese founder, Kan'ichi Ozaki (尾崎貫一), employed twelve Cantonese cooks from Yokohama's Chinatown and served the ramen arranged for Japanese customers.[26][27] Early versions were wheat noodles in broth topped with char siu.[11] The store also served standard Chinese fare like wontons and shumai, and is sometimes regarded as the origin of Japanese-Chinese fusion dishes like chūkadon and tenshindon.

Rairaiken's original store closed in 1976, but related stores with the same name currently exist in other places, and have connections to the first store.

In 1933, Fu Xinglei (傅興雷), one of the twelve original chefs, opened a second Rairaiken in Yūtenji, Meguro Ward, Tokyo.

In 1968, one of Kan'ichi Ozaki's apprentices opened a store named Shinraiken ("New Raiken") in Chiba Prefecture.

In 2020, Ozaki's grandson and great-great-grandson re-opened the original Rairaiken as a store inside Shin-Yokohama Rāmen Museum.

Popularization and modernization

After Japan's defeat in World War II, the American military occupied the country from 1945 to 1952.[11] In December 1945, Japan recorded its worst rice harvest in 42 years,[11][32] which caused food shortages as Japan had drastically reduced rice production during the war as production shifted to colonies in China and Formosa island.[11] The US flooded the market with cheap wheat flour to deal with food shortages.[11] From 1948 to 1951, bread consumption in Japan increased from 262,121 tons to 611,784 tons,[11] but wheat also found its way into ramen, which most Japanese ate at black market food vendors to survive as the government food distribution system ran about 20 days behind schedule.[11] Although the Americans maintained Japan's wartime ban on outdoor food vending,[11] flour was secretly diverted from commercial mills into the black markets,[11] where nearly 90 percent of stalls were under the control of gangsters related to the yakuza who extorted vendors for protection money.[11] Thousands of ramen vendors were arrested during the occupation.

In the same period, millions of Japanese troops returned from China and continental East Asia from their posts in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Some of them would have been familiar with wheat noodles.[11] By 1950 wheat flour exchange controls were removed and restrictions on food vending loosened, which further boosted the number of ramen vendors: private companies even rented out yatai starter kits consisting of noodles, toppings, bowls, and chopsticks.[11] Ramen yatai provided a rare opportunity for small-scale postwar entrepreneurship.[11] The Americans also aggressively advertised the nutritional benefits of wheat and animal protein.[11] The combination of these factors caused wheat noodles to gain prominence in Japan's rice-based culture.[11] Gradually, ramen became associated with urban life.

In 1958, instant noodles were invented by Momofuku Ando, the Taiwanese-Japanese founder and chairman of Nissin Foods. Named the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century in a Japanese poll,[33] instant ramen allowed anyone to make an approximation of this dish simply by adding boiling water.

Beginning in the 1980s, ramen became a Japanese cultural icon and was studied around the world. At the same time, local varieties of ramen were hitting the national market and could even be ordered by their regional names. A ramen museum opened in Yokohama in 1994.

Today ramen is one of Japan's most popular foods, with Tokyo alone containing around 5,000 ramen shops,[11] and more than 24,000 ramen shops across Japan.[35] Tsuta, a ramen restaurant in Tokyo's Sugamo district, received a Michelin star in December 2015.