Slush Pile #5: Me and Noodle Soup
The best noodle soup comes after a long hard day and all you want is an anchor to feeling human again because absolutely nothing else will do. And those who don’t know were not raised on noodle soup or are vegetarians, and non-religious vegetarians are never really happy people (And vegans... do vegans eat pussy? The world demands an answer). I didn’t know how much I relied on noodle soup to make the world a better place until I found myself walking over a mile in Edinburgh searching for pho knowing full well going in that direction meant another 3 miles back towards the direction of my hike. I have never felt more Northern Chinese.
As I travel through Europe I’ve had noodle soup in almost every city at least once, because it is often there and it is necessary. After a 9-hour bus ride from Paris to Bordeaux and another half hour of traipsing with a backpack as tall as me, even slightly flat pork broth at the ramen bar FuFu was slurped down, especially since the noodles had the perfect give and were mercifully not over cooked, and unlike in Asia where protein is expensive it came with extra halves of Ajitma egg.
In London after watching a friend get double-teamed by two Germans following three hours of sleep, I discovered the most perfect Lan Zhou beef noodle soup. It was the only thing a wandering little girl with Northern Chinese blood could want, in a land of Yang Gui Zi who about four generations ago forced an opiate addiction upon her ancestors so that they could assuage their consciences on silk sheets. Lan Zhou beef noodle soup, in particular, is something you cannot make at home. The noodles are hand-pulled to whatever thickness you choose- the daintiness of two hairs to the heartiness of a cornrow. My parents went to college in the province of Lan Zhou, in a time where college students didn’t go hungry but couldn’t have meat every day. It’s the first thing we look for in any Chinatown. They have never found a bowl of beef noodle soup like their twenties, but it’s the only thing that they cede to nostalgia- an unending quest for a holy grail of beef noodle soup that tastes like being idealistic in 90’s communist China.
For emergencies, such as empty wallets in Western countries, one may seek out a packet of ramen- any kind made for soup noodles will do- and boil water, using the ramen base flavor packet as stock. Throw in green onions, chopped tomatoes, any other diced vegetables you wish, sesame oil and vinegar if you have it, spam, ham, any meet. Add ramen noodles, and after a few seconds after the noodles throw in an egg. Pepper and slurp.
Desperate measures