When most people in the United States hear the word “ramen,” they probably think of a package or cup of instant noodles. In Japan, ramen is something entirely different. It is a carefully prepared dish built around fresh noodles, rich broth, and a wide variety of meats, vegetables, eggs, seaweed, and other ingredients. Depending on the style, the broth alone may take hours to prepare.
In 1958, Momofuku Ando changed all of that when he introduced Chicken Ramen, the world’s first instant noodles. A little more than a decade later, Nissin introduced Top Ramen to the United States, choosing Chicken as the original flavor because it was familiar to American tastes.
Although Top Ramen was created by a Japanese company, it quickly adapted to an American way of thinking. Traditional ramen can take hours to prepare. Top Ramen asks only one question: “Do you have three minutes?”
This photograph features Top Ramen Chicken Flavor, a product that has found its way into countless college dorm rooms, office lunch breaks, and kitchen cupboards. It may be a distant relative of a carefully prepared bowl of ramen in Japan, but for many of us, it is the version we grew up with.
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If noodles were the subject this month, she said, they should be taken seriously.
This assignment started, as many of them do, with Emily. My AI assistant keeps an eye on the calendar of unofficial food holidays, and March offers more than one excuse to talk about noodles, including National Noodle Day and other noodle-related observances that appear throughout the month. Rather than another ordinary food photograph, Emily suggested we send one of her friends out into the world to investigate.
Her choice was Celeste.
Celeste has a way of turning even the simplest situation into a small performance. Tall, composed, and completely comfortable with attention, she seemed like the right person to represent noodles this month.
Emily also decided the setting mattered.
So instead of a kitchen or a take-out counter, Celeste appeared at a sushi bar in a Japanese restaurant, standing with a bowl of steaming noodles in front of her. Chopsticks in hand, she seemed perfectly at ease, as if this had been her idea all along.
The instructions were simple: enjoy the noodles.
The result is this short video, Celeste, a bowl of noodles, and a quiet moment in a Japanese restaurant that proves even something as ordinary as noodles can become a small event when the right person is involved.
If you would like to see more of my photography projects, including food photography and occasional appearances by Emily and her friends, visit my website at https://www.secondfocus.com Thanks!
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