The Ramen Years

You can see it in my flat stomach and the way my hands shake—I lived on instant ramen for years. Nissin mostly, whatever packet was cheapest. Duck, beef, vegetable flavors all tasting like the same salt. If you’ve been broke, you know this food. It’s not food you think about, it’s just math.

Momofuku Ando invented instant ramen in Japan after World War II. He wanted to solve a hunger crisis. Built something cheap and fast that would actually work. It did, and it kept working. Decades later, millions of people still eating what he made.

The thing is, it’s still here. Still in every supermarket, still doing the same job. Still feeding anyone who needs it. The solution to postwar starvation became casual food, college food, broke food—the thing you eat when you don’t want to think. And that’s what stuck.

Sometimes I buy a packet and remember what that salt tastes like, remember being young and broke with no other options. Not nostalgic about it, just remembering.