This week’s recipe, and the second installment of the RAMEN MARATHON, is a true East meets West dish (East meets Southwest, to be more accurate). But, before we get to the recipe, why don’t we grab our lunch boxes and backpacks and take a little fieldtrip through time to look at the history of ramen?

The precursor to ramen was invented over four millennia ago in China. It went by a name I’m sure you’ve heard — lo mien. Several thousand years after noodles were invented, they made their way to Japan. The name was changed slightly due to Japanese pronunciation, and they became known as ramen.

The popularity of ramen in Japan was marginal for many centuries, well into the 1800s. It then began to pick up popularity, but was still a far cry from the instant noodles we eat today.

The iconic bricks we now buy were invented about a decade after World War II. At that time, Japan was experiencing terrible food shortages, and one man, Momofuku Ando, thought he had a solution — instant noodles.

It took Ando years to perfect the recipe for producing the noodles (which we’ll look at next week), but once he had it, they caught on like wildfire. Still, they didn’t make their way to the United States until 1970, but after that — well, the rest is history.

Now, on to the recipe: Ramen Tacos. I know ramen might seem like a poor substitute for meat — but consider what kind of meat you’re replacing in tacos. Taco meat, as it has been so cleverly named, is quite possibly the most disgusting form of cooked animal flesh ever conceived.

Ramen Tacos might seem like a novelty dish you’ll make once, but try thinking of it this way — when was the last time you spent an entire night sitting on the toilet just because you ate some bad ramen?

Ramen Tacos

Ingredients:

1 package ramen (beef or spicy flavor)

Directions:

Boil two cups of water. Add noodles, stirring a little. After three minutes, turn off heat, and strain out the water. Add around half the flavor packet of ramen powder and about twice that much taco seasoning to the noodles. Stir well, until there is no powder left. Put the noodles in your taco shells instead of meat, and top with your preferred taco toppings. You’re done.

— by Tanner Koomar