History of ramen noodles

Noodles originated from China over 4000 years ago and reached the Japanese culture much later on. In fact, we had to wait up to 19th century, in the Meiji period, for ramen to become widely known in Japan. The Japanese dish was originally called “Lamen”, but will be later referred to as “Ramen”, since there is no distinction between the 'L' and 'R' sounds in the Japanese language and it was a more popular way to express the word.

After the Second World War came an intense food shortage in Japan, a turning point in the history of noodles. Ramen were perfect and greatly helped Japan, they were cheap and a great source of needed calories. A bit later, in 1958, Momofuku Ando, founder and chairman of Nissin Foods, invented the instant noodles, which are a lot closer to what we eat today. Named the greatest “made in Japan” invention of the 20th century, in front of the karaoke and headphone stereos, in a Japanese poll made by the The Fuji Research Institute Corporation, instant ramen became a Japanese cultural icon.

Today, 4000 years after the origin of the first noodles, ramen are known worldwide and are part of over 85 billions meals every year. The Ramenlicious team really hope you will enjoy the website and join the always growing noodle lovers community.

Lamian :
La (chinese) = Pulling and stretching.
Mian (chinese) = Noodles.
Ramen :
Men (japanese) = All kind of noodles made of cereal flour.

*Notice: Ramenlicious features a lot of recipes that works perfectly with both ramen and western-style instant noodles. We want to share our passion with as many people as we can and we make sure our recipes are available to all kinds of noodle lovers. Good news though, we have a “Japanese” section, for those who want to try authentic ramen recipes.

History of ramen noodles

The origin of ramen :