Here's something nobody asked for: Pringles-flavored instant ramen noodles**.
Geekologie:
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Pringles and the 30th anniversary of Super Cup, the two are combining their brands Voltron-style to release two new flavors of Super Cup ramen noodles (Sour Cream and Onion and Jalapeno and Onion) and two new flavors of Pringles chips (Chicken Bone Soy Sauce and Squid Fried Noodles).
A 10-pack of this special ramen costs $24, just a bit more than ordinary instant noodle cups (shipping is $28 though). Available for preorder now through Japan Trend Shop.
**Now, this is not to be confused with ramen-flavored Pringles. That's a whole different junk food beast.
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Many Westerners equate ramen noodles with the cheap dried stuff that poor students and young adults eat, but Criterion Collection is doing their part to change that. They put together this wonderful documentary to support the 4K restoration of "ramen Western" Tampopo, one of the greatest food films ever made. Read the rest
According to a new University of Arizona study, instant ramen is the most valuable currency at one US prison. For example, a two .59 packets of ramen could be traded for one $10 sweatshirt while one ramen packet was worth "five tailor-made cigarettes." Why did the noodles overtake cigarettes as the most valuable currency? Because the cafeteria food is terrible and it's getting worse. Sociologist Michael Gibson-Light calls it "punitive frugality." From The Guardian:
The study paints a bleak picture of the state of food available at the prison. Gibson-Light found that black-market food became more valuable after control over food preparation switched from one private firm to another in the early 2000s.
“That change was part of a cost-cutting measure,” Gibson-Light said. “With that change that resulted in a reduction in the quantity of the food the inmates were receiving.”
Inmates at the prison Gibson-Light studied went from receiving three hot meals a day to two hot meals and one cold lunch during the week, and only two meals for the whole day on the weekend...
“[Money] doesn’t change unless there’s some drastic change to the value in people using it,” he said. The shift from tobacco to ramen highlights how dire the nutritional standards at prisons has become, he added.
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Yelldesign: "We thought it would fun to make a complete meal from start to finish, using only paper. Everything you see is made from paper, except for the hands."
See more of their Papermeals here.
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New York City's Ivan Ramen proprietor/chef Ivan Orkin gives pro tips on noodle slurping.
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