🚀 go-pugleaf

kuno@gssm.otsuka.tsukuba.ac.jp (Yasushi Kuno) writes:

>Hi, we can hardly wait for your NoodleReport, Dave...

It looks like you're doing it for me! But I'll gather the stuff
together and write it up like I did before.....

>    First, we make distinction between the type of noodles.
>I exclude so-called western pastas, e.g. spaghetti; Japanese
>noodle only (but Chuuka-men's origin is China of course).
>    
>    a. Soba ---  Brown coloerd noodles, made from soba plant.
>    b. Chuuka-men --- Yellow coloerd noodles == c + something.
>    c. Others --- White coloerd, made from flowers.
                                            ^^^^^^^
I think you mean wheat flour, don't you?  But maybe there's noddles
made from roses, never can tell... For sure there is multi-colored
noodles as I've seen then in the store.

>     c1.  Sou-men --- Very thin, under 1mm diameter profile.
>     c2.  Hiya-mugi --- Thin, around 1mm diameter profile.
>     c3.  Kisi-men  --- Flat profile.
>     c4.  Udon --- Anything except c1-c3.

>And then hot or cold.  Some are served in both hot or cold form,
>ther others not.  Let's start from the cold ones, for our summer.

Lots of good information here and following (which I've cut). The
main thing I could add so far is that you don't usually eat just
noodles plain but with some kind of 'soup' (don't know what the word
is in Japanese, but I've seen 'soup' in katakana). 

When you buy instant/dried ramen it comes with a little package of
soup. Easy, just open the package and pour it in. 

Also easy are the bottles of 'da-shi' and 'tsu-yu' you see in the
supermarket (labels in hiragana). You just open the bottle, pour
some in a bowl adding water if it doesn't say 'staight' (usually in
katakana). Then you can add 'ki-za-mi' chopped 'ne-gi' (something
like chives but not so strong a taste), 'o-ro-shi' (grated ginger,
which you can get in a plastic tube), and maybe some chopped
'myo-ga' (sorry, don't know what this is in English). You eat the
noodles by dipping them in the soup. 

Ladies my laugh when they hear about this kind of "cooking" but,
hey, it tastes great!

Dave

--
Dave McLane                                       davidg@aegis.or.jp
You're free to copy/quote/translate this as long as credit is given. 
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087