Dad instant noodles to eat

He died in early January 2007, Momofuku Ando Japanese during his lifetime named few knew. But it belongs to the most important Japanese invention of the XX century, leaving behind the largest and karaoke, and portable music player. Momofuku Ando invented instant noodles.
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Momofuku Ando was born in 1910 in the Japanese-occupied Taiwan. His parents died when he was a child and raised by his grandfather and grandmother, who owned a clothing firm. When Ando was 22 years old, he started his own business and went to Osaka.





"One day I was walking down the street past the Osaka queue length of 20-30 meters, lined up in front of a dimly lit tent, from which steaming ... Dressed in shabby clothes people shivering for hours waiting for their turn. The man who accompanied me said that they wanted to get a bowl of ramen noodles (traditional Japanese noodles), "- wrote in his autobiography, Momofuku Ando. Picture shivering, hungry citizens so struck by Ando, ​​the owner of a small food company that later on he devoted his life to the Japanese, and the inhabitants of the planet do not have to be humiliated for the sake of serving noodles.



In 1934 he successfully completed the School of Economics of the University of Ritsumeykan in Kyoto and received Japanese citizenship. Things were going well, but after the Second World slump. Ando in 1948 was sentenced to prison for tax evasion and his company went bankrupt.

At that time, the country lost the war, famine reigned.
People were forced to stand in long lines for food. Therefore, Ando was very surprised when I heard that the Japanese Ministry of Health encourages people to literally eat the bread of US wheat received as humanitarian supplies. Noodles was much more common for the Japanese dish, but the power of Japanese food companies are clearly not enough to ensure that the entire country.

In 1948, he decided to change the scope of activities and to do that, in his opinion, always brought to income. He began to sell salt.
His goods, of course, in demand, but it did not save him from the new bankruptcy. That is, at first his firm prospered. So much so that he became a prominent member of the business community in Osaka. He was invited to the boards of directors of many companies, and even made the chairman of a local credit associations. It went bankrupt. Ando had to pay off the creditors of its own funds, which made it almost beggars. It was then that he thought of that line, which is seen in 1948. All remaining funds Ando he gave the invention a product which not only brings a profit, but would benefit from his fellow citizens



Noodle instant preparation was the work is not easy. After all, from the beginning Ando gave up the idea to produce a dry noodles: noodles cooking method, which could be stored for a long time, the Chinese invented millennia ago. The purpose of Ando was much ambitious. His noodles had to be not only cheap but also delicious and quick to prepare. With this and had to tinker. For their experiments Ando built a real kitchen-lab in a shed behind his home in the town of Ikeda.
The equipment was the easiest. Traditional machine to cook the egg noodles and a large pot. At first it seemed that the problem posed by Ando, ​​unsolvable. Noodles or receive a completely tasteless, or fall apart, so that turned into a mess.

The breakthrough came when Ando invented the spray broth noodles ordinary garden watering. Then he stir the noodles that the upper layer is impregnated with the broth, it is roasted in palm oil by evaporating the water, and then dried in the form of briquettes. To prepare the noodles in it just needed to add hot water. Each noodle cakes Ando invented to put two bags: one, opaque, were spices and bouillon extract, in the other, transparent, - a small portion of palm oil.

First, the new dish was expensive and regarded as a delicacy, but a year later the price dropped, and sales began to grow rapidly.



In 1958, the first products created by Ando company Nissin Food Products entered in the stores and became a bestseller. And not only in Japanese. Ando, ​​often repeated, that "the world will be peace if people are not lacking in food" was not going to be limited to the Japanese market. That is why the first of its instant noodles is available only with chicken flavor under the brand name Chikin Ramen. In fact was a reason. "Using our cooking chicken noodle soup, we were able to get around the religious taboo, operating in different countries. Hindus can not eat beef and Muslims - pork, but there is no culture, religion or country that prohibits eating chicken, "- explained the Japanese.



Within 12 years of Nissin Food noodles known throughout Asia as well as in Europe and America. However, Ando was not going to stop there.
In 1971 he came up with something that made him noodles perhaps the most popular product on the planet. On the shelves there was a novelty by Ando - Noodle Cup Noodle, sold in a waterproof styrofoam bowl of. Directly it could add hot water. There was no longer any need to shift noodles, wash the dishes after meals. Noodles by Ando became really cost that was appreciated by the students, bachelors, working, who want to save time for lunch. And soon thereafter began adding noodles, dried vegetables, which razvarivayas in boiling water, creating the impression of a full soup.
But most importantly, this is literally a cosmic breakthrough food innovator committed in 2005. It was then that there was instant noodles in a vacuum packaging, created specifically for its longevity astronavtov.A Ando cheated on the daily consumption of noodles own invention.

Starting with the production of chicken noodles in a plastic bag, Ando has become a real emperor's cup noodles. His company produces nearly two dozen kinds of noodles with a variety of flavors and ingredients. Empire Ando plants located around the world - from the United States and Peru to Germany and Hungary - and deliver its products in nearly 70 countries. According to the company, in the world every day more than 100 million people use the noodles from Nissin.



The invention Ando has long been the province of all mankind. Of course, the world leader in consumption of instant noodles is as you might guess, China: Chinese consume about 30 billion servings of the product per year. For China, followed by Japan and Indonesia. If this scale is not surprising creation of the International Association of cup noodles and the fact of the annual global summit devoted to it (World Ramen Summit). According to the summit, in 2004, earthlings consumed 65, 5 billion packs of instant noodles cooking. And, as conceived by Ando, ​​she continues to save people. The staple food of the victims of the Asian tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 in the US was just instant noodles cooking.
With a light hand Ando noodles now produce hundreds of companies around the world. She has different tastes (in Poland, for example, there are noodles flavored borscht), but otherwise it is not much different from the invention Ando, ​​since most manufacturers try to emphasize this similarity. Opening the noodles any company, you can be sure to find something there that came up with Ando: Briquette noodles and two bags. Transparent - oil and silver - with broth and spices.



And in 2000, responding to a question about the main Japanese invention of the XX century, the Japanese have clearly put on the first place is not super modern computers or electronic devices, and a simple and nutritious dish is familiar to almost everyone today.

At the instant invented Ando, ​​has its drawbacks. Dietitians and doctors argue how healthy is the food. Restaurateurs and champions of good taste complain that, like other fast food, noodles kills a person's ability to distinguish between a gastronomic masterpiece of cheap concoctions. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the main purpose of which was put in front of Momofuku Ando, ​​performed. "Instant noodles are provided to Mr. Ando's rightful place in the pantheon of human progress. Teach a man to fish - and he feed himself for life. Give him instant noodles - and you no longer have to teach him anything, "- says a New York journalist Lawrence Downes. The best epitaph bankrupt, who decided to save mankind from hunger, you can imagine.



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