The American Chef Who Helped Ramen Take Over the World

“Ramen is one of the most difficult dishes to prepare,” says Evan Orkin, with a quiet salad. “So far, I’m wrong.” I came for this interview with the hope that Urken is a god in the ramen-worshipping world and the star of the 2017 episode of the series Chef’s table From Netflix he was going to help me improve my ramen, so that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear.

But there is no doubt about the merits of this man. Although he was born in Long Island, spent most of his life in Tokyoraising a family while trying, in the words of Yuka Hayashi of the Wall Street Journal, “to outdo the Japanese with their hairy noodles,” though I suspect Orkin was arguing that he was simply trying to create something that wouldn’t make him laugh in his adopted hometown.

After all, this beloved noodle soup is serious business in Japan, where there are no fewer than three museums dedicated to it, as well as countless manga (one series has a character named Ramenman), anime, movies, books, and a database. Accurately indexed ramen kept by critic (some would say obsessive) Ohsaki-san, who eats about 800 servings a year In their eagerness to keep pace with new institutions.

Photo: “I couldn’t figure out how they did it”… Miso Ramen Evan Orkin. Photo: Felicity Kluck/The Guardian

And it’s not just in Japan. The New York Describes ramen as “A vehicle for creativity, nostalgia and deep gastronomic pleasure, More than just a bowl of soup,” and there are ramen shops everywhere from Santiago to Sofia to Soweto. In a clear sign of the time moving forward, ramen is hugely popular on TikTok; even Kylie Jenner shared her favorite ramen hack (by adding butter, garlic powder, and eggs). …to be fair, she’s an influencer, not a chef.) Meanwhile, In Britain, ramen has become so popular that you can take it from Shetland to the Channel Islands. With everything from Hebrew lamb to Cornish crab. Globally, an estimated 116.56 billion servings of instant noodles were consumed in 2020.

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Ramen holds such an important place in Japanese culture that one can assume it occupies the same sacred base as sushi, as chefs must train for years before they are allowed anywhere near a piece of fish. However, ramen, who is believed to have arrived with Chinese immigrants in the early twentieth century, is barely a century old compared to a millennium of sushi, and thus it is practically a region devoid of tradition. Even Osaki admits, “I don’t think of ramen as Japanese cuisine. Ramen has become a world cuisine.”

From Fast Food to Art: The American Chef Who Helped Ramen Take Over the World - image-9
Miso ramen from Bon Dadis restaurant in London. Photo: Felicity Kluck/The Guardian

There are some rules of course. Even those who are only familiar with instant ramen will recognize its ingredients, especially the noodles, which come in a variety of forms, however, and are usually made with wheat (although Orkin also adds rye), with an alkaline component responsible for Its elastic texture and slightly soapy taste. The fluid in which you are usually – although not always – can be divided into two large groups– Either shentan, a clear, light broth (found in most packaged noodles), or betan, a richer and more fat broth, such as tonkotsu, ramen with pork bones and creamy noodles that seem to float in the milk. Orkin is in the UK to collaborate with the London chain Bone Daddies serving gravy-free cheddar ramen and mashed up dashi.

The condiment takes the form of a paste or sauce known as tare, which can be soy sauce, salt or miso, and is the most obvious part where the chef can put his own stamp on the dish; Orkin told me about a small chain in Japan, “Where they bring everything in the house…except for the empty oneIt is a secret recipe. The owner personally takes it to each restaurant once a month.” Finally, the dish can be covered with an almost endless array of items, usually including shasho or thinly sliced ​​stewed pork and eggs soaked in soy sauce and chives.

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“The people who made ramen didn’t know how to do anything else. He had ramen, that was the thing he wanted, he didn’t want to give it up.” J Kenji Lopez substitute

There is a great deal of potential difference between these four elements. Orkin prefers a lighter style of ramen—”the tonkotsu was too heavy”—so his signature dish is shio, or savory ramen, in a mixture of chicken broth and dashi. It was not easy to create it. In the ’90s, there weren’t really any recipes available, neither in Japanese nor in English – “Ivan was the first to write everything!” His wife, Mary, proudly intervenes – especially since the ramen shops of the time were, as J. Kenji Lopez Alt, “Tokyo’s Fat Spoons”: The no-frills places frequented by students and blue-collar workers, and run by entrepreneurs rather than trained chefs.

Understandably, they weren’t ready to share. “The people who made ramen didn’t really know how to make anything else. He had ramen, that was the thing he wanted, he didn’t want to give it up.”

Having worked as a chef for more than a decade in the United States, Orkin was completely confident in the kitchen. He moved to Tokyo with Marie in 2003, at the start of the ramen boom, which transformed her from fast food to art. He was drawn to ramen because he knew it tasted good, but “couldn’t figure out how they made it”.. The techniques were so different from what he had learned in culinary school that he enrolled in the only preparatory course available at the time, run by a pasta machine maker, which, he says, “helped me understand the ingredients.”

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Photo: Saying it with cheese…ramen without cheddar broth and maze dashi for breakfast by Bon Daddies in collaboration with Evan Orkin in London. Photo: Bex Clark

However, when Marie made her first dish of ramen, “she said it was crap.” She protests, laughing, “I didn’t say that, I said it wasn’t ramen.. Very delicate.” So he began experimenting with blending Japanese techniques with his Western learning, such as using European onions, garlic, ginger, and sauteed apples as a base, or adding slowly roasted tomatoes to the broth for an extra kick of umami. Finally, in 2006, he was ready to open his business.

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Osaki admitted he was a bit skeptical before visiting Orken’s original location in the suburb of Setagaya, but told Orken in 2013, “When I ate ramen, I realized it wasn’t half a plate, it was perfect. I realized that the history of ramen has changed hereSuddenly, Orkin appeared on the cover of a trendy Tokyo food magazine on TV, and his shop had lines running down the street.

Of course, there were negative reactions as well, both in Japan and when Ivan Ramen opened in the US in 2013, but after establishing himself to the Japanese public, he didn’t deter Orkin:I’m from New York, and I really don’t care what people think. People say how a white man can make good ramen, which is very offensive. I have dedicated my life to learning about Japanese culture and honoring Japanese traditions. If you don’t like my food, that’s fine. If they say my food is bad, well, maybe I’ll ask them to leave.”

So I say a little nervously, “Can you tell me some secret to being successful when making ramen?” He replies that he will tell me a very specific kind: “Good ramen consists of harmony”, in the balance of different ingredients…and then in making “all that flavor stick to the noodles when you drink them”. And although his main recipe, included in his book Ivan Ramin, consists of 38 pagesShe explains that when she makes ramen at home, she often focuses her energies on one ingredient (“You can buy noodles, you can even buy pork”) and then tries to get everything else into it.

Harmony in everything. Seems to be a good recipe for life as well as for ramen.

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