Around the Han Dynasty, pasta began to become a major food in China. At that time, pasta was collectively referred to as "cake", and people ate steamed cakes the most, that is, making round cakes from dough that had not been fermented and steaming them in a steamer. This way of eating was still popular until the Song Dynasty. In Water Margin, Wu Dalang, the elder brother of Song Wu, made a living by selling sesame cakes, which were steamed cakes in the Han Dynasty.
Steamed cakes are delicious when they are hot and hard when they are cold, so later someone came up with a new way to eat them-put cold steamed cakes or raw cakes in a pot and cook them in soup. Because it is cooked in soup, it is called soup cake. In the Jin Dynasty, some people reformed the soup cake. They rolled the dough thin with a rolling pin, then cut it into long strips with a knife and boiled it in water. It's easier to cook and it's more convenient to fish with chopsticks. This is noodles.
Noodles invented by China were introduced to Japan in Nara era. At that time, the Japanese, who took China as their teacher, quickly accepted this kind of food and became interested in it. However, a Japanese ate 1000 with relish, and actually felt that in the fast-paced modern society, the noodles invented by Mr. China should be improved. He is the owner of a food workshop in Japan, Ando Baifu.
In the mid-1950s, Japan imported a lot of flour from the United States to make up for the shortage of domestic grain production. In order to increase sales, the government encourages people to eat bread, but Japanese in the East are far less interested in bread than westerners. Among pasta, Japanese prefer noodles, but noodles usually take 20 minutes to finish with boiling water, and seasonings need to be prepared, which is a bit out of keeping with the fast pace of modern society.
One day, Ando wanted to go home by tram after work. In front of the station, he saw five or six "food stalls" spread out along the street, crowded with people. "What kind of food are you selling, and the business is so prosperous?" Ando walked over and looked puzzled. "Oh, that's a noodle stand set by China expatriates. These people stand waiting for hot noodles. "
On the tram, Ando's mind has been filled with people waiting for noodles. I thought Japanese people like noodles, and now is a good time to manage noodles, because the government will reward people who eat more noodles. However, it takes too much time to eat noodles like this. There must be many people who love noodles who have to eat bread to save time. So, can you invent a noodle that can be eaten with boiled water?
Excited by his own idea, Ando happily told his workshop staff the idea of developing instant noodles the next day. Unexpectedly, the response was very cold, and the employees advised him not to waste time. But confident Ando believes that instant noodles are convenient for people and will definitely have a market. So, he built a simple shed, bought a flour milling machine, and started his invention work under the suspicion of everyone.
Ando believes that in order to make noodles that can be eaten with boiled water, seasoning should be added to flour, then rolled into noodles, steamed and dried. He did what he wanted, but somehow, instead of making noodles, he rolled out piles of lumps like rice. Ando thinks that the imaginary instant noodles are not so simple to make.
Why can't noodles be rolled? At first, he thought that flour lacked stickiness, so he added eggs to the dough, and the result was even worse. Is the minced meat in the broth too thick? He filtered the soup and tried again, but he still couldn't roll the noodles.
After several failures, Ando gave up the original idea of adding seasoning to flour and decided to adopt another way of adding seasoning. He rolled the flour into ordinary noodles, steamed it and soaked it in soy sauce soup to make the noodles taste salty, thus solving the problems of rolling noodles and enhancing flavor.
Next, Ando Baifu will solve the problem of drying and preserving noodles. He thought about sun drying and hot air drying, but both methods are too time-consuming and not suitable for large-scale industrial production. Later, he thought of frying. Experiments show that this is very ideal. Not only can the noodles be fried quickly, but also many fine holes will appear on the fried noodles, which can absorb water when soaked in hot water and make the noodles soften quickly. Besides, fried noodles taste better.
After three years of painstaking research, Nissin Food Company of Ando Baifu finally successfully invented the first instant noodles-chicken-flavored instant noodles in 1958. It was snapped up as soon as it went on the market. 1962, Ando Baifu applied for the patent right of instant noodles.
Now instant noodles are all produced by automatic assembly line. In addition to frying, it is also steamed with high-temperature steam, usually with seasoning. In the main production links, it has also been greatly improved compared with when it was first born.
Instant noodles are popular all over the world. At present, the global annual output of instant noodles has exceeded 30 billion packets, making it the second largest staple food in the world after bread.