Momofuku Ando invented the world's first pack of instant noodles - "Chicken Ramen" in 1958, when he was 48 years old, and the inspiration for developing instant noodles came as early as 1945. After World War II, there was a serious shortage of food in Japan. People were so hungry that they even ate potato stalks. Momofuku Ando happened to pass by a ramen stall and saw people in simple clothes standing in line for twenty or thirty meters despite the cold wind. This made him very interested in ramen, which he felt was a huge need among the public. But he didn't start developing it. It wasn't until the credit portfolio he served as chairman went bankrupt and he lost almost all his property in an instant that he decided to shift the focus of his business to "food". In the spring of 1958, Momofuku Ando built a simple hut of 10 square meters in the backyard of his residence in Ikeda City, Osaka Prefecture. He found an old noodle making machine, bought 18 kilograms of flour, cooking oil, etc., and devoted himself to the development of instant noodles. . The instant noodles envisioned by Momofuku Ando are instant noodles that can be eaten immediately by adding hot water. He set five goals: taste good and you won’t get tired of eating them; they can become a household kitchen staple and have high shelf life; they are simple and durable. Requires cooking; cheap; safe and hygienic. When I started my research, I was completely in the exploratory stage. I got up at 5 a.m. and immediately got into the hut and continued my research until one or two o'clock in the night. My average sleep time was less than 4 hours. Such days lasted for a whole year without a day off. In the noodle business, he is a complete layman. The combination of raw materials for noodles is very subtle and requires a lot of knowledge. He tried everything he thought of, but when he put it on the noodle making machine, some of the noodles were loose and some were sticky. I threw it, threw it and did it again. The entire development has become a repetitive process with no hope. Later, I finally realized an experience: food is about balance. Food development is the process of pursuing and discovering this unique and wonderful balance. Later, Mrs. Ando’s fried dishes inspired him. There are countless holes in the coating of fried food, just like a sponge. This is because the coating is mixed with water, and the moisture in it will dissipate during the frying process, forming "holes". When boiling water is added, it will easily It will become soft soon. In this way, the problems of preservation and cooking can be solved at the same time by soaking the noodles in soup to flavor them, and then frying them to dry them. This method he called "instantaneous hot oil drying" soon obtained a patent for the instant noodles making method. Putting noodles in a paper cup In 1966, Momofuku Ando went to Europe and the United States for the first time for an inspection trip, hoping to find a way to introduce instant noodles to the world. When he took chicken ramen to a supermarket in Los Angeles, he asked a few buyers to try the ramen, and they shook their heads in embarrassment. It turned out that there was no bowl with noodles. All they found were paper cups, so they divided the chicken ramen halves into the paper cups, filled them with boiling water, and ate them with forks. After eating, he threw the cup into the trash can. Ando suddenly realized that he had the idea of ??developing "cup instant noodles" in his mind. The container decided to use foam plastic, which was relatively new at the time. It was light, had good thermal insulation properties, and was cheap. The cup is shaped so that it can be picked up with one hand. On a plane returning from the United States, Ando discovered that the upper part of the aluminum container for pistachios given by the stewardess had a sealed lid made of paper and aluminum foil. At that time, he was troubled by the problem of how to preserve it for a long time and wanted to find an airtight material. The aluminum lid of the cup of instant noodles was fixed at that moment.