The inventor of instant ramen, Momofuku Ando, has died. I can't let this pass without genuflection. Thanks to Mr. Ando, I made it through the lean moments of my undergraduate years, through times of destitution while living in Paris, and through being lost while hiking in the Wyoming wilderness.
Five meals for a dollar. His invention is indirect development assistance for the middle classes.
5 comments:
If I was ever gonna have a kid, I like to think I'd name him Momofuku.
And by way of an update, this headline in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
"Obituary: Momofuku Ando / Invented instant noodles, revolutionized eating"
Damn. Revolutionized eating. The first major development since chewing and swallowing, I'll wager.
Don't forget sliced bread. How many choked to death whole loaves before having even a chance to chew, let alone swallow. Really the eating revolution has a been incremental. Gagging, of course, is the reverse. Even reptiles are born knowing how to gag.
I beg to differ about the revolution. While it was indeed the product of a long historical struggle against tyrannical hegemonic forms of eating, we must ask how the proletariat came to lose its revolutionary fervor. As Marx noted, each mode of production carries internal contradictions that ultimately lead to the next mode of production. Humans used to hunt for food. But this required weapons. Weapons were used to overthrow tyranny. Momofuku used the weapon of the quick, efficient lunch to then pacify a hunting population that had ascended to power. Chef Boyardee and the Ding Dong each threatened this hegemony but were quickly put down in, it appears, the 1980s. Have you seen a Ding Dong recently?
I believe that Momofuku was actually a counter-revolutionary. Thus the obit should read, "Invented instant noodles/counter-revolutionized eating."
The New York Times picked up your homage today (no credit given, of course!). But not the comments.
CKR
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