FEER : Oodles of Noodles
Yap Yok Foo
Issue 7 August 2003
Oodles of Noodles
There's something about noodles. Maybe it's the slurping when you eat
them. Or the endless variations. Or the texture--everything from chewy
to melt in the mouth. Whatever it is, we think it's time to celebrate
one of Asia's all-time favourite foods
>How come no mention of the humble Malaysian pan-mee?
>This started life in the post WWII era when rice was severely
>rationed, due to shortage and also to control supply, lest it
>fell into the wrong hands (the MCP insurgents).
>A shipment of flour was bought by the British and added to
>the ration; which led to pan-mee being "invented"
>Never mind, that would be another story from Uncle Yap
++++++++++++++++++++
Lofty Aims
A 22-metre noodle? At The Noodle Loft, they never tire of finding ways
to share their passion for pasta
By Craig Simons/BEIJING
LI JIAN, a 21-year-old chef from China's northeastern Shanxi province,
knows way too much about noodles. He knows how to make shaved wheat
noodles and sorghum pasta flakes and braised oat noodles shaped like
fish. He knows a folk song that records the names of 400 kinds of
pasta. He has memorized a poem by the Tang dynasty poet Li Bai
eulogizing the food. He says with a grin that in Shanxi you can eat
noodles every day of the year and never eat the same thing twice. He's
tried.
Since he runs the kitchen at The Noodle Loft, a popular upmarket
Beijing restaurant with track lighting, rooftop dining, and giant
paintings of flowers hanging on the walls, he might be forgiven his
obsession. Especially as he's also able to make the remarkable
"one-strand noodle"--a single ribbon of wheat dough stretched until
it's 22 metres long and served in a giant bowl with a tangy tomato and
egg sauce. Price? Eight renminbi, or about $1.
The Chinese have been eating noodles since at least the Han dynasty,
which kicked off in 206 B.C., and on a wall of the restaurant a sign
proclaims that China--not Italy--has the world's best pastas. Shanxi,
it says, further refines the art. Li agrees. "Our life in Shanxi is
very poor and plain," he says, "but we've made it plentiful by making
different kinds of noodles."
Hardly much of an ad for Shanxi tourism, but the noodles are good.
Three things spice up Shanxi cuisine. First, the ingredients.
According to Li, the best noodles are made with only water and flour
(although he admits he sometimes adds a pinch of salt, a drop of soy
sauce or a bit of egg white to add taste or keep the dough together).
While that might sound like a recipe for boredom, Shanxi adds variety
by deriving its flour from every kind of grain--wheat, rice, corn,
sorghum, barley and even peas.
The second thing that helps make Shanxi life a little more exotic is
the variety of ways the noodles are cooked. At the restaurant they
offer hand-pulled, shaved, sliced, scissored, picked with a chopstick
(chefs use chopsticks to flick the dough), rolled, and hand-shaped
noodles that can be braised, boiled, steamed, stir-fried or served in
soups.
Finally, Shanxi noodles come with a tray of condiments--shredded
cilantro and slivers of carrot, cucumber and onion--and, at least at
The Noodle Loft, a choice of eight sauces. There's everything from
vinegar and garlic to fried pork stewed with the same mouth-numbing
ailanthus prickly ash that heats up Sichuanese cooking. Li has even
added his own creation, a concoction of eggplant, dried tofu, potatoes
and yellow beans that has the taste of a sweet, summer evening.
If all those choices aren't enough to keep you from yawning, order the
"crystal style" cow genitals or a "salted cockscomb." Li says they're
good.
THE NOODLE LOFT
20 Dawang Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing.
Tel.: (86-10) 6774-9950
Hours: 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OUT OF PERSIA
By Fay Khoo
China and Italy may claim to be the spiritual home of noodles, but
these days many historians reckon they actually originated in ancient
Persia. From there, they travelled through China, where they were made
mainly from rice in the south and other cereals in the north.
Today, noodles--fresh, dried and instant--are an Asian staple. Cheap
and easy to make, they can be eaten with an endless range of sauces
and soups. And in some cultures, they're even thought to bring good
luck. At a birthday party in China, Japan and Philippines, long
noodles mean long life.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Pressing Engagement
History comes alive on the plate in Kerala, where the pain of making
idiyappam is exceeded only by the pleasure of eating it
By Shailaja Neelakantan/NEW DELHI
MY SISTERS AND I always looked forward to idiyappam on Sundays, but
not without a little trepidation. The whole family was in good spirits
as my mother dry-roasted the parboiled rice flour to make the dough.
Then the trouble began. My father would bring out the presser--a
device that looked like something out of a medieval torture
chamber--to turn the dough into thin white noodles, and my mother
would volunteer to turn the rickety machine's crank. But soon, with a
sigh, my father would take over while my mother wrestled to keep the
presser pinned to the ground. Much sweating, much cursing, and by the
end they were vowing never to make idiyappam again.
Thankfully, their memories were short, and like most families in the
southern India state of Kerala, we regularly feasted on these light
and fluffy steamed noodles.
Idiyappam is native to Kerala but may have its roots in contacts with
China that go back 2,000 years. More recently, says Praveen Anand, a
food historian and chef at Dakshin restaurant in Chennai, the Chinese
concept of steaming food took root in India after traders from the
court of Kublai Khan arrived in the 14th century.
Rice, though, goes back much further in Kerala. Unlike most Indians,
who generally eat polished rice, Keralites prefer unhulled rice,
which--soaked, steamed and dried--is the basic ingredient in
idiyappam. Anand says the custom of eating these reddish-coloured
grains may come from Kerala's ancient medical system of Ayurveda,
which stresses relaxation and healthy eating.
No Keralite could do without idiyappam, especially for breakfast. The
combinations are endless, but one of the most popular is idiyappam
with ishtoo, a coconut-milk curry with peppercorns and vegetables or
meat. Or there's lemon idiyappan--noodles with grated coconut and a
squeeze of lemon. Or tamarind idiyappam--noodles with tamarind pulp,
ginger and green chillies.
Not long ago, my parents decided to end their long-running battle with
the idiyappam presser. Now they buy packaged idiyappam, which can be
boiled like any other dried noodle. Still, every now and then they
admit that it doesn't taste as good as the idiyappam from the machine.
And they're right.
Idiyappam can be found in restaurants specializing in southern Indian
cuisine. In New Delhi try Sagar in the Defence Colony Market. Tel.:
(91 11) 2433-3658. Open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NOODLE REFORM
By Arthur Jones
In China, as with so much else, noodles have undergone "reform and
opening up," and nowhere more so than in its most cosmopolitan city,
Shanghai. State-run old favourites are franchising to private
entrepreneurs and modern, stylish noodle chains are springing up to
wrest customers away from foreign fast food like McDonald's.
"Traditional noodle stores used to be dirty and old, so we thought
that if we could give people a good atmosphere and fresh tasty food,
they would be happy to go back to noodles," says Shanghai-born
restaurateur Fiona Wang, a Canadian returnee, or haigui ("sea
turtle"), as the Chinese call natives returned from abroad.
Wang and her brother Young Wang bought the rights to open a franchise
from a popular, 50-year-old state-run noodle chain that by the late
1990s had become a rundown brand with a dozen branches. "When we were
kids, we used to go to Shanghai's first famous noodle chain, Cang Lang
Ting," Young Wang recalls. "The noodles there were excellent--a secret
recipe, they said. So once we had decided on noodles, there was no use
reinventing the wheel."
Their first Cang Lang Ting outlet, opened in 2001 round the corner
from the American Consulate, was an instant hit, with lunchtime queues
for the chewy wheat noodles flavoured with toppings like crispy eel.
"The noodles are the best in Shanghai," says a young woman diner.
"They're not as soft as regular noodles." Now the Wangs have three
shops in the city centre that use the state-run chain's name and
noodles.
And while they didn't reinvent the wheel, they've given it a new spin.
Their outlets feature Qing-dynasty carved-wood reliefs suspended from
wires like objects in an art gallery. The food too is old-meets-new.
The fresh noodles come daily from the central Cang Lang Ting
kitchens--"the recipe is still a secret," says Young Wang--but the
soup and toppings are made in-house, with new twists like
sesame-coated pork ribs, steamed yellow-fish slices and sweet and sour
eel.
"Most of our customers are young," explains Fiona Wang, "and they're
looking for something new. But we still get old customers who remember
Cang Lang Ting from the early days and want to see if it tastes the
same."
"It was never like this," recalls a diner in his 50s who patronized
the old Cang Lang Ting (which means Surging Wave Pavilion). "This
place is much cleaner. There's even air-conditioning. The food is
still good, but it's a lot more expensive. We used to buy noodles for
2 or 3 jiao [one-tenth of a renminbi] a bowl." Prices at the new-look
Cang Lang Ting start from 10 renminbi ($1.20) a bowl.
CANG LANG TING (the new outlets)
1465 Fuxing Zhong Lu, Tel.: (86 21) 6437-2222; 355 Madang Lu, Tel.:
(86 21) 6328 0137, and 401 Changshou Lu, Tel.: (86 21) 6276 6399
+++++++++++++++++++++++
A Miracle of Make-Do
A shortage of rice flour forced the Vietnamese to find new ways to
make vermicelli. They're glad they did
By Margot Cohen/CU DA, HA TAY PROVINCE
WHEN CREATIVITY overcomes adversity, cuisines can veer off in new
directions. That's the story behind Vietnamese vermicelli--a culinary
compromise that's become a much-loved national staple. Back in the
1950s and '60s, Vietnam advised its impoverished citizens to devote
less rice to noodle-making. So villagers began experimenting with the
humble arrowroot, a starchy crop once fed only to pigs.
Today, even the pickiest French chefs sing its praises. Compared to
the Chinese or Thai varieties, "Vietnamese vermicelli is stronger and
its threads are bigger. It provides nice structure for crab soup,"
explains Didier Corlou, executive chef at the Sofitel Metropole Hotel
in Hanoi. So it's easy to understand the pride on display at Cu Da, a
hamlet in Ha Tay province just south of Hanoi, where vermicelli is the
leading household industry.
"If you make it by hand, it looks more beautiful than if made by
machine," says 39-year-old Vu Thi Hanh, who has been manufacturing the
noodles in her courtyard for the past 17 years. It's sweaty work.
Three days a week, Hanh spends 10 hours a day squatting in a vat. She
cleans the arrowroot and mixes it with water and sugar-cane extract,
which gives it a butterscotch-coloured sheen. Meanwhile, her husband
stands bare-chested before a charcoal brazier and spreads the gloopy
mixture over a huge steaming pan. After a few minutes, it's stretched
out to dry on a bamboo rack before being cut into strips and fed
through a mechanical cutter. Motorcycles are then piled high with the
bundles of dry vermicelli and zoom off to market, where it fetches
6,500 dong (42 cents) a kilogram.
Time, though, is catching up with traditional makers like Hanh. Two
years ago, one of her neighbours invented a machine that pumps the
powdered mixture into a steamroller to produce the flat, rubbery
slabs.
"Working like this is not as difficult as doing everything by hand,"
explains the inventor, Vu Van Thanh. Thanks to the machine, 20 of
which have already been sold, Thanh's family can produce 1,000
kilograms of vermicelli each day, instead of just 600. That's bad news
for families like Hanh's, who don't have room in their own courtyards
for the machine. Yet, as production rises, demand remains stable.
That helps explain why the ranks of vermicelli makers are thinning.
Ten years ago, Cu Da counted some 250 households pitching in. Now
there are just 80 families producing vermicelli throughout the year,
although an additional 70 get involved ahead of the Lunar New Year,
when soups and salads made with vermicelli are traditionally popular.
Hanh can't imagine her life without the noodle. But unless someone
hits on creative new ways to boost market demand, her business may
prove weaker than those strands of arrowroot.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Slurp-Slurp Society
Noodle eaters in this town say "look, no hands!" as they wolf down a
favourite regional dish
By Erin Prelypchan/LUCBAN, QUEZON PROVINCE
THE SITE OF the LBC lighting shop, on a quiet road in the central
Philippine town of Lucban, is the unlikely birthplace of a pint-sized
culinary phenomenon. The shop on Avenida Rizal used to be a factory
that produced the noodles for a beloved regional dish--a simple but
enduring creation that now sells on street corners for the equivalent
of 10 cents.
The dish is called pancit hab-hab, and it's a steaming tangle of wheat
noodles, carrots, cabbage and pork slices, ideally flavoured with
broth made from a pig's marrow-rich front legs. The whole caboodle is
liberally seasoned with black pepper, and for chilli addicts there's
often pepper-spiked vinegar to sprinkle on top.
Sound ordinary enough? Try eating it without utensils. Pancit hab-hab,
a favourite lunch for construction workers and students in this town
of 40,000, comes on a square of banana leaf, sometimes with a scrap of
newspaper underneath to catch the drips. From the leaf, it goes
straight into the mouth--no fork, no chopsticks, no fingers--in a
series of dangling, fragrant mouthfuls. The sound of this procedure
gives the dish its name, which translates roughly as "slurp-slurp
noodles."
Slurpers can thank a migrant from Macau named Loo Sing, who set up
Lucban's first noodle factory at the end of the 19th century at what
is now the site of the LBC lighting shop. There, he and his workers
pressed out sheets of dough by hand with sections of bamboo as rolling
pins. According to Palermo Salvacion, head of the Lucban Historical
Society, the noodles were wildly popular, and soon Loo's employees
left to set up competing workshops. A street vendor named Basilia
Radovan is credited with creating the recipe a few years later, and as
for the way the dish is served, it was just a question of
practicality. "We had no utensils like spoons during that time," says
Salvacion, as Filipino food is traditionally eaten with the fingers.
"But if you use your hands it's hot. And then there's the sauce. Very
messy."
Pancit hab-hab is famous throughout the country and eating it is an
essential part of any visit to Lucban, especially during the town's
annual fiesta. Some places are trying to take the dish upmarket. At
the new Patio Rizal Hotel, it's served with forks and garnished with
curls of squid, wedges of hard-boiled egg and chips of toasted garlic.
Other places, like the Old Centre Panciteria, serve the dish with
chunks of roast suckling pig, crispy skin and all. But Lucban cooks
agree that the key to the dish is the noodles, which are still made
daily in home workshops throughout Lucban.
The dough is made with high-protein flour--ensuring tender yet chewy
noodles--which is kneaded by hand and then compressed into blocks with
the feet. It is then rolled paper-thin, mechanically shredded into
fine ribbons, steamed, air-dried and sold immediately to street
vendors and restaurants. The noodles can also be further dried and
packaged for retail shops, where they and the town's pungent garlic
and oregano sausages make popular souvenirs.
Pancit hab-hab's ubiquity in Lucban is probably because the town has
yet to boast a branch of a major fast-food chain, even the
Philippines' own Jollibee. For now, fast food in the town means
housewives on shaded street corners with folding tables, cast-iron
crocks and stacks of banana leaves. "We all know that things would
change if McDonald's came," said Castor Nantes, secretary to the
mayor, after a hearty noodle lunch. And Lucbanins are happy to slurp
while they still can.
In Lucban, pancit hab-hab (with cutlery) can be had at the Patio Rizal
Hotel, Quezon Avenue, tel: (63 42) 540-2107, or the Old Centre
Panciteria, San Luis Street. Traditional vendors (no cutlery) are all
itinerant.
*************From Uncle Yap**************
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