Noodle

Noodle

Misua noodle making in Lukang, Taiwan
Type	Noodle
Creator	Attributed to people of Qijia culture, Arabian and/or Mediterranean origin [1]
Main ingredients	Unleavened dough
Variations	Numerous
Cookbook: Noodle  Media: Noodle

Noodles are a staple food in many cultures made from unleavened dough which is stretched, extruded, or rolled flat and cut into one of a variety of shapes. A single noodle can be made, eaten, or extracted from a serving of noodles, but it is far more common to serve and eat many at once, and thus more common to see the plural form of the word.

While long, thin strips may be the most common, many varieties of noodles are cut into waves, helices, tubes, strings, or shells, or folded over, or cut into other shapes. Noodles are usually cooked in boiling water, sometimes with cooking oil or salt added. They are often pan-fried or deep-fried. Noodles are often served with an accompanying sauce or in a soup. Noodles can be refrigerated for short-term storage, or dried and stored for future use. The material composition or geocultural origin must be specified when discussing noodles. The word derives from the German word Nudel.^[2] The oldest evidence of noodle consumption, from 4,000 years ago, has been found in China.^[3]

History

Vermeer van Utrecht's painting of a man eating noodles (National Museum, Warsaw).

The origin of noodles is ambiguous. Claims have been made that the noodle was invented by people of Qijia culture, of Arabian and of Mediterranean origin.^[1] Given the scarcity of physical evidence, it is unlikely that the question of origin can even be answered with certainty.

In 2005, a team of archaeologists working in the People's Republic of China reported finding an earthenware bowl that contained foxtail millet and broomcorn millet.^[4] noodles at the Lajia archaeological site, arguably hailing from the late neolithic period. But this claim was disputed by later research,^[5] which suggested that noodles simply cannot be produced from millet, a cereal that lacks gluten, a necessary protein.^[6]

The earliest written record of noodles is found in a book dated to the Eastern Han period (25–220).^[3] Noodles, often made from wheat dough, became a staple food for people of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE).^[7] During the Tang Dynasty, the noodles were first cut into strips, and in the Yuan Dynasty, the making of dried noodles began.

Asia

Wheat noodles in Japan (udon) were adapted from a Chinese recipe by a Buddhist monk as early as the 9th century . Reshteh noodles were eaten by the people of Persia by the 13th century. Innovations continued, as for example, noodles made from kudzu (naengmyeon) were developed in the Joseon Dynasty of Korea (1392–1897). Ramen noodles, based on Chinese noodles, became popular in Japan by 1900.

A bowl of roasted beef noodles.

Instant noodles were invented by Momofuku Ando and first marketed in Japan in 1958.^[8] According to Ando's method, a bundle of fresh noodles is flash-fried, which dries them out and provides for a long shelf life.

Europe and the Near East

In the 1st century BCE, Horace wrote of fried sheets of dough called lagana.^[9] However, the method of cooking these sheets of dough, lagana, does not correspond to the current definition of either a fresh or dry pasta product, which only had similar basic ingredients and perhaps the shape.^[10] In the 2nd century CE, the Greek physician Galen mentioned itrion, referring to all homogenous mixtures from flour and water.^[11] The Latinized itrium was used as a reference to a kind of boiled dough.^[11] The Jerusalem Talmud records that itrium was common in the Byzantine Provinces of Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda from the 3rd to 5th centuries CE.^[12] Arabs adapted noodles for long journeys in the 5th century, the first written record of dry pasta. The 9th-century Arab physician Isho bar Ali defines itriyya, the Arabic cognate of the Greek word, as string-like shapes made of semolina and dried before cooking.^[13] Muhammad al-Idrisi wrote in 1154 that itriyya was manufactured and exported from Norman Sicily. Itriya was also known by the Aramaic speakers under the Persian sphere and during the Islamic rule referred to a small soup noodle prepared by twisting bits of kneaded dough into shape.^[14]

The first concrete information on pasta products in Italy dates to the 13th or 14th centuries.^[15] Pasta has taken on a variety of shapes, often based on regional specializations. Since at least the 20th century, pasta has become a staple in North America and elsewhere.

In the area that would become Germany, written mention of Spätzle has been found in documents dating from 1725, although medieval illustrations are believed to place this noodle at an even earlier date.^[16]

Types by primary ingredient

Wheat Bakmi: Southeast Asian Chinese yellow wheat noodles with meat, usually chicken Chūka men (中華麺): Japanese for "Chinese noodles", used for ramen, champon, and yakisoba Kesme: flat, yellow or reddish brown Central Asian wheat noodles Kalguksu (칼국수): knife-cut Korean noodles Lamian (拉麵): hand-pulled Chinese noodles Mee pok (麪薄): flat, yellow Chinese noodles, popular in Southeast Asia Reshte: Central Asian, flat noodle, very pale in colour (almost white) used in Persian and Afghani cuisine Sōmen (そうめん): thin variety of Japanese wheat noodles, often coated with vegetable oil Spätzle: a Swabian type of noodle made of wheat and eggs Thukpa (Tibetan: ཐུག་པ་, Wylie: thug pa ): flat Tibetan noodles Udon (うどん): thicker variety of Japanese wheat noodles Kishimen (きしめん): flat variety of Japanese wheat noodles Rice Flat or thick rice noodles, also known as hé fěn or ho fun (河粉), kway teow or sen yai (เส้นใหญ่) Rice vermicelli: thin rice noodles, also known as mǐfěn (米粉) or bee hoon or sen mee (เส้นหมี่) Idiyappam is an Indian rice noodle. Khanom chin is a fermented rice noodle used in Thai cuisine

The different types of noodles commonly found in south-east Asia Wide, uncooked egg noodles. Idiyappam, Indian rice noodles. Buckwheat Makguksu (막국수): local specialty of Gangwon Province in South Korea Memil naengmyeon (메밀 냉면): Korean noodles made of buckwheat, slightly more chewy than soba Soba (蕎麦): Japanese buckwheat noodles Pizzoccheri: Italian buckwheat tagliatelle from Valtellina, usually served with a melted cheese sauce Others Acorn noodles, also known as dotori guksu (도토리국수) in Korean, are made of acorn meal, wheat flour, wheat germ, and salt. Olchaeng-chi guksu, meaning tadpole noodles, are made of corn soup put through a noodle maker right into cold water. It was named for its features. These Korean noodles are mostly eaten in Gangwon-do. Cellophane noodles are made from mung bean. These can also be made from potato starch, canna starch or various starches of the same genre. Chilk naengmyeon (칡 냉면): Korean noodles made of starch from kudzu root, known as kuzuko in Japanese, chewy and semitransparent Shirataki noodles (しらたき): Japanese noodles made of konjac(devil's tongue) Kelp noodles, made from seaweed

Types of dishes

• Basic noodles: These are cooked in water or broth, then drained. Other foods can be added or the noodles are added to other foods (see fried noodles) or the noodles can be served plain with a dipping sauce or oil to be added at the table. In general, noodles are soft and absorb flavors.
• Chilled noodles: noodles that are served cold, sometimes in a salad. Examples include Thai glass noodle salad and cold udon.
• Fried noodles: dishes made of noodles stir fried with various meats, seafood, vegetables, and dairy products. Typical examples include chow mein, lo mein, mie goreng, hokkien mee, some varieties of pancit, yakisoba, Curry Noodles, and pad thai.
• Noodle soup: noodles served in broth. Examples are phở, beef noodle soup, chicken noodle soup, ramen, laksa, saimin, and batchoy.

Preservation

• Instant noodles
• Frozen noodles

See also

• Chinese noodles
• Japanese noodles
• Korean noodles
• Macaroni art
• Filipino pancit
• List of noodles
• List of noodle restaurants
• List of foods
• Vietnamese noodles

References

1. Serventi & Sabban 2002, pp. 271-344.
2. Harper, Douglas. "noodle". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
3. Roach, John (12 October 2005). "4,000-Year-Old Noodles Found in China". National Geographic. pp. 1–2.
4. Lu, Houyuan; Yang, Xiaoyan; Ye, Maolin; et al. (13 October 2005). "Culinary archaeology: Millet noodles in Late Neolithic China". Nature 437 (7061): 967. doi:10.1038/437967a.
5. GE, W., LIU, L., CHEN, X. and JIN, Z. (2011), Can noodles be made from millet? An experimental investigation of noodle manufacture together with starch grain analyses. Archaeometry, 53: 194–204. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4754.2010.00539.x
6. Sabban, Francoise (17 October 2012). "A scientific controversy in China over the origins of noodles". Open Edition. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
7. Sinclair & Sinclair 2010, p. 91.
8. "Momofuku Ando". The Sunday Times (TIMESONLINE). 10 January 2007.(subscription required)
9. Serventi & Sabban 2002, pp. 15–16 & 24.
10. Serventi & Sabban 2002, pp. 15–16.
11. Serventi & Sabban 2002, p. 17.
12. Serventi & Sabban 2002, p. 29.
13. "A medical text in Arabic written by a Jewish doctor living in Tunisia in the early 900s" (Dickie 2008: 21).
14. Rodinson, Perry & Arberry 2001, p. 253.
15. Serventi & Sabban 2002, p. 10.
16. "City Profile: Stuttgart" (PDF). London: Embassy of Germany, London. Retrieved 26 November 2015. Spätzle is a city specialty

Bibliography

• Dickie, John (1 October 2010), Delizia! The Epic History of Italians and Their Food (Paper), New York: Atria Books, ISBN 0743278070, ISBN 978-0743278072
• Errington, Frederick et al. eds. The Noodle Narratives: The Global Rise of an Industrial Food into the Twenty-First Century (U. of California Press; 2013) 216 pages; studies three markets for instant noodles: Japan, the United States, and Papua New Guinea.
• Rodinson, Maxime; Perry, Charles; Arberry, Arthur J. (2001). Medieval Arab Cookery (Hardback). United Kingdom: Prospect Books. p. 253. ISBN 0907325912. ISBN 9780907325918.
• Serventi, Silvano; Sabban, Françoise (2002). Pasta: the Story of a Universal Food. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231124422. ISBN 9780231124423.
• Sinclair, Thomas R.; Sinclair, Carol Janas (2010). Bread, beer, and the seeds of change: Agriculture's imprint on world history. Wallingford: CABI. p. 91. ISBN 978-1-84593-704-1.