Noodles (#340, Topic I)

Our retirement community is full of people with talents. One of the joys is to read our community's monthly newsletter -- edited by an energetic fellow retiree who doubles as reporter, writer, copy editor, composer, and art designer -- the only role he does not perform is probably being the publisher, which is done by our management office. When I started to do my blog, he came to our unit to interview me and then wrote an excellent column. The newsletter also has several interesting columnists, one of which, for want of a better term, is a food historian. In the current issue, she writes about noodles. It is so interesting and packed with so much valuable information that I cannot resist quoting her at length. She opens with the following: "Noodles are ... believed by many to be Chinese in origin. ... The Chinese culture considers them to be a symbol of longevity and eating them brings long life." Well, "eating them brings long life" may be an exaggeration, but, noodle as a symbol of longevity is certainly intuitive. Indeed, in China, one eats a bowl of noodle on one's birthday. During the Lunar New Year, we eat rice cakes 年糕, which are homonyms to another phrase 年高 meaning "reaching new high in the new year." Sorry, I digressed. Our columnist then says: "The earliest printed record of noodle use appears in a book written during the East Han Dynasty (25-220 CE). These original noodles were made from millet ground into flour. ... By the time of the Sung Dynasty (900-1218 CE), selling boiled noodles had become a thriving business. Marco Polo is said to have marveled at the number of noodle shops when he visited Hangchow in the 13th century." After two paragraphs on the dissemination of noodle to "Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and the Philippines," and on the many ways of preparing noodles, she ends with a teaser: "The Italians love their pasta. Did Marco Polo really bring the noodle back from China?" For the answer, we'll have to wait for the next month's newsletter. Stay tuned.