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New I don't have that book . . .
. . but I do have three others, ranging from 152 to 220 pages.

Ramen noodles came from Manchuria, and were long confined to Yokohama Chinatown. Yokohama was where non Japanese were allowed to live, work and trade. The noodles were originally unique to Manchuria because they have lakes there with very alkaline water. Noodles made with alkaline water stay firm in hot broth longer than noodles made without alkali. Today ramen noodles are made with pure chemical alkalis.

When Chinese were finally let out of Yokohama Chinatown, their noodle dish spread, slowly, with the first Japanese ramen shop opening in 1910, employing a bunch of Chinese cooks from Yokohama Chinatown.

After WW-II, the US loaded Japan with a lot of wheat flour, some of which was diverted to illegal street vendors (all street vendors were illegal). In 1950, wheat controls and the ban on street vendors were loosened, and ramen spread rapidly - but it wasn't until the 1980s that ramen became an iconic Japanese dish.

Now every district in Japan has their own special variety of ramen.

Instant ramen noodles were invented in 1958, and were soon being made by Japanese companies in the US. The dreary variety sold in the US is the same as sold in Japan.

If you want good instant ramen, you get it from Korea - fantastically better. It has recently been infiltrating non-Asian markets in the US.
New Thanks for the tip on Korean ramen
The local Asian shop carries lots of stuff with no English printing on it, except the FDA label that gets stuck on when it's imported. How do I identify Korean ramen when I can't read the label?
--

Drew
New Try an Amazon search
I like to try different assortments and I picked up this and a couple of others such as boxes of yakisoba.

FOODIE BOXX Asian Instant Variety Ramen Noodles with Samyang Hot Sauce (15 Pack, Thai) https://a.co/d/dKEnbuf
New Just ordered this to try
GARAK Chicken Soup Ramen, Korean authentic instant noodle, mild soup noodle 1 Bag with 5 Pack https://a.co/d/9BuOMEh

I'd like to find an assortment that is reasonably priced but even this is two bucks an envelope but I can't get less than five per flavor. So I'll try this to see if it's any different at this level. Of course there are many price points much higher.
New And once you go down the Raman path you just can't stop
In the restaurant, you always get an assortment of toppings.

So this looks good:

1 POUND-Vegetable Soup Blend Dried Dehydrated Vegetable Flakes-To Make Ramen Noodle Soup-Dehydrated Onion, Carrot, Potato, Sweet Potatoes, Red And Green Bell Peppers And Parsley Flakes https://a.co/d/fs30wMY

But then you have a very light on real protein meal. I toss eggs or other protein additives, but I'd like to have a dry supply at the ready.

So this looks interesting:

Ramen Toppings - Seafood & Vegetable Mix with 11-Ingredient Blend, 14oz Dried Ramen Toppings for Noodles, Including Goji Berries https://a.co/d/d9RMWL1

But at this point all of my current soups would not be able to handle seafood additives.

This is required:

GARAK Seafood flavor Ramen, Korean authentic instant noodle, Mild Spicy noodle 1 Bag with 5 Pack https://a.co/d/hqOKFAS

I'll also look for some plain start raman and see what the toppings takes me to.

Once I start scrolling on the bottom I see eel. Oh my God I miss eel. And my local sushi restaurant passed to the new generation and the kid took over and it sucks. Time to make my own..

Old Fisherman ROASTED EEL 3.5oz (6 Pack) https://a.co/d/7h711h1

But eel needs need sauce.

Eel Sauce 190ml (6.42 Fl Oz) | Pack with 3 pieces | Oriental Food | Fresh Harvest https://a.co/d/4hR0NrF

The sauce might take 2 months to get here. Everything else is 2 days. That eel will sit in the can and tease me.

Okay, I got a bunch of protein filled ramen meals along with all the various other stuff tossed in that I like. The non-protein stuff can go in all of my current supply. I'll have to separate them out into vacuum sealed bags which I will in about a 10th of the original bag portions.

When I break open a vacuum sealed bag, I can always quickly reseal it with the sealer that Andrew pointed me a few years ago. I have a huge bag of dehydrator packets, gel filled, which I can also toss in to ensure the crispness to start off with.

I tried to check everything to not buy anything made in China. China sourced food scares me. No Dollar store food for me.
New My favorite is Neoguri Spicy Seafood . . .
. . with Udon type noodles.

I use a lot more water than specified, and add a good bunch of whatever I have in the freezer: shrimp, clams, mussels, sea cucumber, shrimp, periwinkles, squid, cuttlefish, etc.

I also crush in about 5 Chilean Aji Charapita. This is the only chili plant that has been really successful on my lot. It did nothing for the first year, since then it has produced around 300 chilis per year. They're smaller than a pea, but very hot.
One year I lost half my crop because some bird came and ate all the ripe ones. Birds are dinosaurs and don't have the chili heat nerve receptor mammals have.

The Koreans use a lot of red chilis, but they don't know about really HOT chilis. Some think chilis were brought to Korea by Portuguese mercenaries aiding China in fighting the Japanese. Not sure that's true, the Portuguese were guilty of spreading HOT! chilis worldwide, they would have laughed at Korean chilis.

The Koreans pretty much ignored chilis for 100 years or so, until they found that if chilis were included in Kimchi it needed less expensive salt. Yes, salt was very expensive worldwide until Portugal set up huge seawater salt pans. Until then, in Europe, most salt came from the Polish and Armenian salt mines. The producers didn't sell it cheap, and the middlemen got a really good cut from the trade. Not sure where they were getting it in Asia.

The Spanish got chilis from Mexico and Central America, took them home and set about breeding mild chilis. The Portuguese got theirs from Brazil, where the very hottest chilis originated, and Portuguese sailors infested the world with them.

To India they took chilis and vinegar. Within a few years hot chilis were growing all over India, but vinegar stayed in Goa.

Where Portuguese vinegar made an impression was in Japan. Sushi bars have two kinds of Mackerel sushi: Japanese Mackerel and Spanish Mackerel. The Japanese Mackerel is actually made with Norwegian mackerel (if they can get it) and vinegar pickled in the manner they learned from Portuguese sailors. Spanish mackerel is a Pacific mackerel served raw and unprocessed. Of course, I enjoy both. My favorite sushis are Mackerel and Uni (reproductive parts of sea urchins with a raw quail egg).

A fun item from back when the Wall Street Journal was a newspaper rather than a Murdock propaganda rag for the 1%. A WSJ journalist visited a seafood processing plant in New England. There they had found that California was making a lot of cash from exporting Uni - so they decided to set up a processing line to get in on that trade.

At one point the journo and his host were on the shucking floor. The host picked up some Uni and asked the journalist, "Would you like to try some?". The journalist, being a good California boy, said, "Sure", took a piece and popped it in his mouth. One of the ladies on the shucking line stood up, pointed, and shrieked "HE'S EATING IT!!!".

But, what do they know about sushi in New England. America's Test Kitchen (Massachusetts) did a comparison of sushi rice. Their top choice was Botan (a calrose variety) and their bottom rank was Kokuho Rose. In California Kokuho Rose is considered #1, and all the Korean markets** are piled with it. In California Botan is considered unsuitable for sushi. I think we know more about sushi here in the Capital of the Pacific Rim than they do in Massachusetts.

** In California, nearly all the sushi restaurants are owned and operated by Koreans, and Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles is mostly owned by Koreans now. If you want real ingredients for real Japanese cuisine, you get it from Korean markets, they have it all, while Japanese markets here sell mostly packaged junk food to make Japanese tourists feel at home.
New Good food vs ethnic junk
I'm going to be spending a weekend in Lorain, OH next week. I'm hoping to destroy an obscene quantity of Mexican food after running a race in the morning. I looked online for a possible place and discovered Lorain has a large Puerto Rican community. (I'm not saying they're the same. Just that that's all the ethnic food I can find.)

Problem is all the restaurants seem to be authentic junk food, just like they'd eat at home. Which might actually be tasty, but it mostly looks really questionable.
--

Drew
New Down that path lies disaster
Thin gristly chewy meat. They've learned to use every little bit of it.

Just a possibility of course.

But one that hovers in my mind every time I think of any meat centric dish from most cultures that are not my own or I did not grow up around. Even if that was an expensive meal.

Lots of great meals from many cultures as well but if I'm going to eat something random that was not recommended by someone I know, it's a crap shoot.

Pure prejudice of course. But give me an Americanized dish over what the true dish is in that culture when possible.
New I miss those noodles
Thanks for this response. When you kick off something like this I really like it. I know I'm going to get an education.

Do you have an Amazon link to something orderable that you would consider good udon noodles and the non-standard recipe I should use for them?

The last time I had a good udon noodle dish was about 43 years ago. I worked a few hours a week at a tiny book shop on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. I was setting up their accounting software, Peach Tree on a Mac. I got paid in books. I was teaching myself Unix then.

For those that don't know, Chestnut Street is No Traffic other than buses street in Philadelphia. It tries to maintain the historic charm for about 15 blocks. At least it was back then. Lots of cobblestone.

Across the street was a noodle shop. It was huge. Counter from the front door to the far back. The udon was incredible (along with the variety of possible things they threw in it) , the bowls were very large, and the price was cheap.

I'll never have that experience again no matter how hard I chase it.

I now pick and choose crap off Amazon.

You magically create stuff with your incredible cooking environment and your huge assortment of ingredients within what you would consider a decent ride away with centuries of knowledge crammed into your head. I envy you.

Even if I had the location and equipment and ingredient availability I still wouldn't be able to do what you do.

On the other hand, I was grooving along and then you mentioned the mackerel. Yuck. I hate greasy salty fish. And then you went right into uni. Ooh, sea urchin snot.

Whenever I order an assortment of sushi I often have the chef add whatever he would recommend just to try stuff, I say hold the salty greasy chewy. No mackerel, clam or octopus. Other than that, give me what you got.

I don't have to say hold the uni because that's way more expensive than the default piece and would never be included without me asking for it.

Thanks for the knowledge roller coaster
Expand Edited by crazy Oct. 23, 2024, 02:05:39 PM EDT
New Okay, got a chance to try it
It's definitely thicker, chewier, and tastes better than the regular cheap stuff.

I recommend.
New Just ordered some
Should show up ... oh crap, we're going away this weekend. Need to go change shipping date.
--

Drew
New Use your phone, Luke!
Google Translate + Your camera + Google Lens should be able to easily translate Korean labels.

Good luck!

Cheers,
Scott.
New Don't they have their own alphabet?
Hangul, or whatever it's called? You can see the difference between American and Russian and Chinese writing, even though you can only read one of them. Korean is just a fourth one to learn to recognise.
--

   Christian R. Conrad
The Man Who Apparently Still Knows Fucking Everything


Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
New The first hint is the packages . . .
. . they are much larger than what has been the standard ramen.
     Andrew! (And anyone else really into ramen) - (drook) - (14)
         I don't have that book . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (13)
             Thanks for the tip on Korean ramen - (drook) - (12)
                 Try an Amazon search - (crazy)
                 Just ordered this to try - (crazy) - (7)
                     And once you go down the Raman path you just can't stop - (crazy) - (4)
                         My favorite is Neoguri Spicy Seafood . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (3)
                             Good food vs ethnic junk - (drook) - (1)
                                 Down that path lies disaster - (crazy)
                             I miss those noodles - (crazy)
                     Okay, got a chance to try it - (crazy) - (1)
                         Just ordered some - (drook)
                 Use your phone, Luke! - (Another Scott)
                 Don't they have their own alphabet? - (CRConrad)
                 The first hint is the packages . . . - (Andrew Grygus)

No pea soup happening, I hope.
62 ms