A bowl of ramen. It is a beautiful thing. When you find an excellent one, the appreciation in your heart can overflow like the flavors that bowl delivers. There was a movie starring the late great Brittany Murphy called Ramen Girl. In it, there was a ramen that would make people cry, as if the sadness of the maker connected to the sadness of the diner and took it away somehow, lovingly, and gently. While I saw the movie as an obvious caricature, there is something to that idea of carrying a connection through these savory bowls of art.
Photo by Cody Chan on Unsplash
Over the weekend I had the privilege of attending a ramen class. To call it “learning how to make ramen” is perhaps too strong. One class of ramen making is like finding an ice cube on a frozen ground. The ice beneath that is connected to that lone cube is the size of the continent of Antarctica. That contrasts one class of ramen making and the vast knowledge contained within. This class teaches Japanese cooking, words, and stories of these dishes and traditions.
In class, our wonderful teacher instructs from the food she makes and eats and therefore, from the heart. She brings so much more value to us than if she recycled culinary school techniques or relabeled restaurant operating procedures. Those can be found in online courses, schools, and on YouTube. Here, we cut through all of that pre-packaged white noise, and get right to the important things.
I have attended this monthly class many times on making Japanese dishes and it works nicely on a schedule. This class ran over in honor of making ramen, appropriately so. Everything was made from scratch, the broth, the noodles, everything. I learned more about the core physics of cooking in this class than all the others I have attended. Here lies the art of ramen, and of life.
Every baker and pasta-making chef knows, that flour, water, and its companions have a mind of their own. They are unique in their response and attitude. Here is where realities are split like atoms in molecular science. It is here the maker, thanks to the laws of physics appears to be magic or a fraud. The beauty of it is that the experience in this one class is so multi-dimensional in how it mirrors the complex dynamics of life, that I feel that I will be gleaning profound substance from this one day in my life for a long time to come. I am truly fortunate to have found this perfect spot on earth to learn so much. This is what striving for…fighting for taste is all about.