泡麪的發展史

About 4,000 of the 5,000 terrible cliches about instant ramen begin with starving college students. Momofuku Ando didn't aim to stuff hungry co-eds with his creation—he wanted to end world hunger.

十有八九的誤傳都說拉麪是由食不裹腹的大學生髮明的。安藤百福的目標可不是讓學生們僅僅把他的發明成果填飽肚子，他想要終結世界上的飢餓問題。

In the last hundred years, Japan has given the world a number of remarkable inventions — the Walkman, the bullet train, the digital camera, the fuel-efficient car, karaoke. But in a poll conducted in December 2000, the Japanese people chose instant ramen as the greatest Japanese innovation of the twentieth century.

在過去的幾百年間，日本爲世界創造了一些列著名的發明，從隨身音樂播放器（Walkman），到高鐵，數碼相機，節能汽車，卡拉OK。在2000年12月份的一次投票中，日本人民選擇方便麪作爲20世紀日本爲世界做出的最大發明。

And as unlikely as it seems, instant ramen's creator, Momofuku Ando, had exactly such ambitions in mind. Instant ramen may seem like a trivial consumer product, but it has helped millions of people survive economic and natural disasters, which is no small accomplishment. And in the aftermath of Japan's recent tsunami and nuclear crisis, with instant ramen feeding thousands of displaced citizens, Ando's legacy has proven its importance once more.

和看起來不同的是，拉麪的發明者安藤百福，在腦子裏早就有這個宏偉的理想。方便麪看起來就像是普通的消費品，但是在經濟和自然災害中它幫助了數百萬人生存了下來，這可不是什麼小成就。在戰後的日本緊接着盡力了颱風和核武器危機，拉麪讓數千流離失所的人民飽腹，再一次證明安藤發明的偉大。

On August 15, 1945, the day after Japan surrendered to the Allies, Ando was walking through his hometown of Osaka, surveying the damage wrought by years of war. The city had been spared the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it was devastated nevertheless.

1945年8月15日，日本投降以後，安藤走在自己大阪的街上，查看多年戰爭留下的傷害。雖然大阪免受兩次長期和廣島兩次原子投放的侵害，不過本身也已經之力破碎。

Aerial bombings had destroyed the factory and two office buildings that Ando had built, leaving him in search of a new occupation. During his walk, he stumbled across a group of people gathered in the wreckage behind the train station, lined up outside a makeshift ramen stall and waiting for something to eat.

空投的炸彈毀了安藤造的工廠和兩棟辦公大樓，逼得他只能令謀生路。在他步行的時候，他發現一大羣人聚在火車站後面的廢墟哪裏，在一個臨時拉麪攤前面排隊，等着發吃的。

Ando thought: People are willing to go through this much suffering for a bowl of ramen? As it turns out, noodle soup is near-universal comfort food, and Japanese people turned to ramen for comfort.

安藤想：爲什麼人們願意大費周章就爲了要一碗拉麪？結果是，麪條是公認的帶來安慰的食物，日本民衆想要通過拉麪帶來安慰。

Food shortages continued to plague Japan for years after World War II, and Ando concluded that hunger was the most pressing issue of his time. He believed that "peace will come to the world when all its people have enough to eat." Ando wanted to help Japan feed its entire population.

二戰以後，食物的短缺還是影響了日本好幾年，安藤認爲飢餓問題時當時最迫在眉睫的。他認爲：“只有人民不飢餓，世界和平纔會到來。安藤要幫助日本解決所有人口的飢餓問題。

To start, he drew up a set of criteria for the perfect postwar food. It had to be:

一開始他爲完美的戰後食物列了一些標準，它必須是

Tasty

味道好的

Nonperishable

不容易壞的

Ready in less than three minutes

最好3分鐘之內就可以開吃

Economical

便宜的

Safe and health

安全健康的

Ando remembered the demand for ramen he'd witnessed more than a decade earlier. Then he got to work making a mass-produced noodle soup that would satisfy the harried workers of an increasingly industrial country.

安藤記得十多年前親眼看見人們對於拉麪的需要。然後他就打算大批量生產湯麪，滿足日益工業化國家的受到飢餓困擾的工人。

Ando spent a year trying to preserve ramen noodles without success; the texture of the rehydrated noodles was never right. But one day, the story goes, he threw some noodles into the tempura oil his wife had heated to make dinner, only to discover that frying not only dehydrated the noodles, but also created tiny perforations that made them cook more quickly. Instant noodles were born.

安藤試了一年但是拉麪的保存問題還是沒法結局，脫水面條的質地不適合保存。但是有一天，他的妻子炸天婦羅做晚餐，他把面丟了一點到油裏面，發現不光面條可以保存，而且油炸過後，麪條表面出現小孔更容易快速煮好。

And so, at the age of forty-eight, Ando embarked on his third and final career: Mr. Noodle. "I came to understand that all of my failure — all of my shame — was like muscle added to my body," He'd felt terribly guilty when his bank failed, and instant ramen promised a kind of redemption. Ando promoted his product with a nearly religious zeal, as though he were on a crusade to feed the world — to end hunger with ramen.

所以在48歲的時候安藤開啓了第三次也是最後一次事業，麪條先生，“我開始認識到我所有的失敗——所有不堪——就像是被加到身體上的肌肉。在他的公司破產以後他感到深深的內疚，但是方便麪的發明像是一種救贖。他宣傳自己產品的時候帶着一種近乎宗教的熱忱，彷彿他獻身於世界，用拉麪解決飢餓。

When Chikin Ramen, Ando's first product, hit the shelves in 1958, the Japanese public initially saw it as a luxury product — it cost slightly more than fresh soup at the local ramen shop. But consumers quickly embraced the convenience of making ramen at home, and sales took off. Instant ramen became a staple food in Japan, and other companies entered the market.

安藤的第一件產品，肌肉拉麪在1958年上架，日本民衆一開始認爲這是一件奢侈品，因爲它比當地新鮮出爐的拉麪甚至還貴。不過消費者們很快就接受了這種能在家做的拉麪，因爲很方便，然後這款產品就脫銷了。

Ando, in turn, looked for international customers. Undaunted by the American consumer's ignorance of ramen and even chopsticks, Ando declared "Let them eat it with forks!"

而且安藤還要覬覦國際市場上面的顧客。在面對美國顧客對拉麪甚至是筷子的不屑一顧，安藤說，“那就讓他們用叉子吃！”

On a business trip to the united States in 1966, Ando had his next great idea. According to legend, Ando was demonstrating his product to supermarket executives in Los Angeles when he observed them repurposing their Styrofoam coffee cups as ramen bowls .

在1966年去美國的一次出差，根據自傳，他向洛杉磯超市總裁展示他的產品中，他發現可以把Styrofoam的泡沫塑料咖啡杯當作拉麪碗。

In

trigued, Ando replicated these makeshift containers for a new product, which took five more years to develop. When Cup Noodles debuted in 1971, they were an immediate sensation: Nissin, Ando's company, has now sold more than 20 billion units. Instant ramen packaged in its very own heat-resistant container — what could be more convenient?

受到了這個啓發，安藤把合格臨時的容器變成一個新產品，又花了5年的時間研發。在杯麪1971年上市以後，立刻引發轟動，安藤的日清公司，銷售了200億碗。方便麪有了它自己的耐熱容器——還能有什麼比這個更方便？

When Ando died in 2007, Noguchi delivered a eulogy to a baseball stadium full of mourners, including two former prime ministers of Japan. One of the former premiers praised Ando as "the creator of a culinary culture that postwar Japan can be proud of." Momofuku Ando turned instant ramen into a national symbol, and instant ramen turned Momofuku Ando into a national hero.

2007年安藤去世，Noguchi在滿是悼念羣衆的棒球館裏致悼詞，人羣中還包括兩位日本前首相。其中一位首相讚譽安藤是戰後日本的驕傲美食文化製造者。安藤百福讓方便麪成爲國家標誌，而方便麪成就了他作爲國家英雄。

As of 2008, global consumption of instant ramen reached 94 billion packages per year — that's an average of fourteen bowls per person. In the modern world, instant ramen has truly become the food of the people. As Momofuku Ando put it, "Mankind is Noodlekind."

截止到2008年，全球方便麪的銷售量在940億包——平均每人吃14碗。當今社會，拉麪真正成爲人民的食物，就像安藤百福說的，“人人都愛面”。

（翻譯：林潯鷗）