Ramen is prominent food culture in the world now. This is a ramen guide book for ramen beginners and fans. The author, Yoshihiro Kaneda, has been a big ramen fan and has eaten ramen in Tokyo, San Francisco, and New York since early ’80s. This book has covered various knowledge about ramen and it also states ramen is an alternative food culture.
From preface
Ramen is the unusual B-grade cuisine and is revolutionary which has rarely existed in history. Ramen has created the alternative food culture in the world. You may think why ramen is the alternative and revolutionary. The reason is that every ramen chef is completely independent from any major companies and ramen is a people’s informal cuisine because it is cheaper than any other formal cuisines. Think about its price. The price range of ramen is about $5 to $8 in Japan. You can eat a ramen for $15 at most in the world. If I dare to choose the old perspective, what these prices tell is that ramen does not deserve to tell anything like junk food. But ramen fans are speaking about its taste, noodles, broth, and toppings enthusiastically on the Internet and are supporting new and creative ramen cooked by a ramen chef’s soul. Therefore, a ramen culture which has spread by people is born.
It was about 20 years ago that I met a famous ramen fan who established today’s ramen fans’ style. He brought a digital camera to shoot ramen and the note to write a comment of ramen and put them on his website. He was eating one ramen, at the lunch time or after work, every day. He took a photograph of ramen in front of him like a ceremony. When a holiday came, he went to local regions to eat ramen. The number which he ate in each local area was about five to eight bowls in different shops a day and he always met other ramen fans in the area and stayed a night with them and spoke with them about ramen. This was just a ramen maniac’s style and culture which he established with many ramen fans. Soon after I met him, I became a ramen fan and I always ate ramen when I went outside of my town. I ate all ramen in my town in Tokyo.
