832: Back-to-School Cooking with Peter J. Kim and David Nayfeld
The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters - American Public Media
In this episode of The Splendid Table, host Francis Lam explores the cultural significance and culinary potential of instant ramen with author Peter J. Kim, whose book
Key takeaways
- Instant ramen is not just a convenience food but a globally significant staple with deep cultural roots in countries like Korea, Japan, Nigeria, and Mexico.
- The invention of instant ramen was driven by post-WWII food aid and innovation, making it a product of necessity that evolved into a culinary phenomenon.
Main topics
- Cultural significance of instant ramen
- History and invention of instant ramen
Notable quotes
"I think when you describe instant ramen in those terms [dorm food or starving college student meal], you're really not recognizing that for a lot of people... it's food food." – Peter J. Kim
"It's a pretty massive contribution to culinary cultures around the world." – Peter J. Kim
Conclusion
This episode champions rethinking instant ramen not as junk food, but as a culturally rich, versatile
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) Tracking macros has a bad reputation. People think restriction, obsession, and overwhelming food math. My experience has been the exact opposite. I'm Revan Arson, VP of Fitness Programming at Peloton, and learning my macros is what finally taught me what enough actually looks like. This week on Project Swagger, how tracking gave me more food freedom, not less, the mistakes it revealed, how I feel now, and how to know what's right for you. Follow Project Swagger now for the full episode wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (0:36) Hey, it's Francis. This week, we're revisiting a visit with a couple of old friends, Peter Kim and David Mayfeld. Have a listen. I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table from APM. Speaker 4 (1:04) Whether you call this time of year back to school or back to busy, or what are you even talking about? My kid's been in school for six weeks. There's no getting around the fact that we need to cook is ramping up. Your boss is out of office isn't on anymore, and neither is yours for that matter. So whether you could use some ideas for feeding yourself or some little folks in your life, efficiently and deliciously, we've got you covered today. Later in the show, we'll talk with David Neifeld, a terrific chef in San Francisco. We got a crash course in learning how to feed his daughter as a single dad. Speaker 4 (1:38) And we'll start with instant ramen. Yes, those packets of three-minute noodles. Because Peter Kim has just written a majestic book on how to make fantastic meals with those packets, called The Instant Ramen Kitchen. Now, Peter is what you might call an intellectual in the world of food. He was the founding director of the Museum of Food and Drink. He's also the founder of Infinite Table, which he describes as... an immersive dining experience that combines 360-degree video, storytelling, and food to transport guests around the world. In short, he is not the first guy you'd guess who would write a real cookbook about food college kids famously scarf in the dorm rooms. But I guess that's kind of his point. So hey, Peter, it's great to see you. Speaker 1 (2:28) Hello, Francis. Speaker 4 (2:30) So you literally founded a museum about food. You trained in culinary school. What do you say to all the people in your life who are now like, so you wrote a cookbook about instant ramen? Speaker 1 (2:48) You know, I have to say, I think most people who know me well would not be so surprised because, first of all, they've probably seen me eat instant ramen. And they also know that I have this great love of sort of comfort foods and certainly no aversion to convenience foods. So I think it kind of. Let's say on brand, as the kids like to say. Speaker 4 (3:12) I mean, look, I love it. So many people love it. It's actually interesting. I don't know that people necessarily have a sense of how. I mean, it's one of these ubiquitous foods, right? Everyone knows instant ramen exists. But most people don't give it a second thought. But you have found some really incredible facts that highlight how popular it is. Speaker 1 (3:32) Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, in 2022, Americans consumed over 5 billion servings of instant ramen, which is kind of mind blowing. And yeah, I mean, obviously, like anecdotally, we know like you can go into almost any grocery store, almost anywhere in the country, any gas station, any deli, and you're going to find instant ramen there. I mean, it is all over the place. Yeah. Speaker 4 (4:00) I mean, 5 billion. My math is not that great, but we have like 325, 350 million people in our country. That's like 15 packets of instant ramen per American that year. And there are plenty of people who don't eat zero of them. So there's people out there eating like hundreds of these things. But there's also this idea of it, right? Like, oh, it's junk food. Or specifically for some reason, people think of it as like... oh, that's just for like starving college kids. You know, it's like student food. But you reject that idea. Why does it deserve our respect? Speaker 1 (4:40) Yeah, you know, I think it's something that has kind of bothered me for a while. If you find any news article about instant ramen, I just sort of hold my breath and scroll through and wait until you see that line where you'll see them say, this dorm favorite or this starving college student meal is, you know, you're going to find that line somewhere in the article. Yeah, inevitably. And the thing is, Francis. I mean, I think when you describe instant ramen in those terms, you're really not recognizing that for a lot of people, myself included, instant ramen isn't just dorm food or, you know, starving college student food. It's food food. You know, it's something that's really a part of my own sort of cultural identity as a Korean American. It's Speaker 4 (5:31) a Speaker 1 (5:31) part of a lot of cultures around the world where people eat instant ramen as... just a part of daily life. I point this out in the book, but obviously in Korea, you have instant ramen that's really just part of the sort of food culture there. And that's made evident by the fact that you see it in Korean movies all the time. In Japan, obviously. Like Speaker 4 (5:53) in Parasite, right? Like, you know, there's an Academy Award winning movie and like one of the sort of iconic moments in Parasite is the family eating instant noodles. Speaker 1 (6:00) Yeah, that's right. They make chapaguri there where they mix nuggery and chapaghetti into, yeah, this dish that a lot of Koreans eat. But yeah, you'll find it in all sorts of cultures. I mean, in Mexico, there's a newspaper there that had once declared Mexico as Maruchan Nation. If you go to Nigeria, indomie is actually synonymous with just noodles because people eat so much of that instant ramen brand. And so, you know, I think the thing that people maybe don't recognize is that instant ramen is really actually this sort of staple of many food cultures. Speaker 4 (6:38) Yeah. Well, actually, and, you know, I think here there's this idea like, oh, if it's instant, that means it's like a highly processed food. And, you know, like, you know, real, quote unquote, real food people wouldn't be into it. But again, to your point, it's like it is a staple of so many diets. I'm like, oh, we have plenty of. highly processed foods are staples or like my kid eats breakfast cereal every morning like breakfast cereal but it's super highly processed food so let me actually ask you a little bit about the how it works because i don't actually understand and maybe you know a little bit of the history too like but how did how did someone get noodles to cook in three minutes and why is it so delicious Speaker 1 (7:19) Yeah, so most people credit a fellow named Momofuku Ando as being the person who really made the first commercially successful instant ramen. And it all happened in the aftermath of World War II. And so in that time, Japan was quite poor and was receiving a lot of food aid from the U.S., particularly in the form of wheat. And so that's when you saw a lot of wheat being introduced into the Japanese diet. That's so interesting. Oh, as Speaker 4 (7:48) opposed to rice. Yeah. Speaker 1 (7:49) That's right. Yeah. And so as the story goes, Lomofuku saw a long line of people waiting to eat ramen at this sort of ramen stall in Osaka. And at that point, he thought, hey, there must be some easier way to deliver ramen to people. And so he was an inventor and he started experimenting with different ways of preparing the noodles. And his big aha moment was when he tried frying the noodles, which dried them out and made them shelf stable. But also importantly, it gave the noodles this sort of porous structure. That means that when you add hot liquid to these noodles, they hydrate very quickly and cook very quickly. And so that was a sort of big moment. And at that point, he had this product that was shelf stable. It used wheat that was... readily available and could cook, you know, within minutes. Speaker 4 (8:45) Oh, that's so interesting. So scientifically what happens is the noodles are, so they're made like quote unquote regular noodles, right? It's flour, it's water, you know, they make the dough, they make the noodles. And then when you fry them, all the water in the dough evaporates out and creates tiny little micro holes that like when you put them back in boiling water, like water just like soaks right back in. Speaker 1 (9:09) That's right. Speaker 4 (9:11) That's incredible. Speaker 1 (9:14) I tip my hat to him. I mean, it's really something that honestly, this innovation has fundamentally changed the diets of people around the world. So it's a pretty massive contribution to culinary cultures around the world. Speaker 4 (9:28) Yeah. And it's amazing to know it was actually because of American wheat being shipped to Japan post-World War II. So it's really... Speaker 4 (9:38) I don't know if we fully appreciate, like, oh, we think of instant ramen, it's like the snack food that we've imported and sort of like have a little bit of arm's length here. But it's like, no, we're like fundamentally responsible for the creation of instant ramen. Speaker 1 (9:52) That's right, yeah. Speaker 4 (9:53) Yeah. So, I mean, again, moving away from like the sort of bad rap of it, the stigma of it, it is, I mean, it's delicious. And it's also like that speed. is really important. That convenience really is important. You know, right now people are thinking about like, oh man, like kids going back to school, like feeding them snacks or being able to feed them a quick meal. It's an amazing thing to have in your back pocket. And you wrote this book to highlight ways that you can cook with it. Talk about that a bit. Like what places does instant ramen have in a kitchen where you're also making quote unquote real food? Speaker 1 (10:34) Yeah, so the really incredible thing about instant ramen is the fact that if you can reach a stovetop, you can make it. Even a child can make instant ramen. And you can give that bowl of instant ramen to anybody, and they're likely going to find it very delicious, all the way up to a Michelin-starred chef. And through my work on the museum, I've been to quite a few culinary industry parties around New York City. where I've seen caviar being served, but also cup noodles. And chefs are very happy to eat that. And I think chefs know what is good, right? And so you have this product that kind of has a superpower of being so easy to make that even a child can make it, but so delicious that even chefs at the highest echelon will find it delicious. Speaker 4 (11:24) Yeah. And even like David Chang, right? Like probably the most written about American chef. Maybe in my lifetime. Speaker 1 (11:30) His Speaker 4 (11:31) restaurants are called Momofuku in honor of the inventor of instant ramen. That's literally why he named that restaurant. Yeah, Speaker 1 (11:38) that's right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and so the thing that's also amazing is you can find this incredibly powerful product in every store in America. And it's probably, you might even have a packet in your pantry right now. And it'll only cost you maybe 50 cents. I'm bougie, so I buy Speaker 4 (11:55) the $2 ones, but yeah. Speaker 1 (11:58) Okay, for the rest of us, Francis. But yeah, it's one of these things that it's this kind of culinary superhero that's already in your pantry or already just around the corner. And when you cook with instant ramen, essentially what's in that packet guarantees deliciousness. The seasoning sachet has enough salt and umami and aromatics. to really bring flavor into the dish. And I think that's something that a lot of home cooks struggle with. It's just like seasoning food properly. And then the noodles provide enough of sort of a backbone to the meal that you know it's going to be nourishing. And so you know it's going to be nourishing. You know it's going to be flavorful. So the rest of it is just sort of... It's all gravy. It's only limited by your creativity. Exactly. Just imagine the flavors you want to bring in and instant ramen is going to help take you there. Speaker 4 (12:53) We're talking to Peter Kim, author of The Instant Ramen Kitchen. More with him in a minute. I'm Francis Lam, and this is The Splendid Table from APM, American Public Media. Speaker 4 (13:04) A show is supported by Square. We've all seen the Square Reader, you know, that slick device where you tap your credit card to pay the bill everywhere from your local coffee shop to a date night bistro. That's because Square is the platform behind so many restaurants you already love. It connects points of sale, online ordering, the kitchen, payments, reporting, and team management all in one place. That means restaurants can keep service moving, see how the business is performing, and get faster access to their money all in a snap. It works with