Daily Dose of English 22
Instant Noodles
Daily Dose of English 22
Intermediate
Hey everyone, my name is Ben and you're listening to a Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're going to be talking about instant noodles or cup ramen, cup of noodles. What other names are there for it? Maruchan, lots of different names for instant noodles because they come in lots of different forms. Instant noodles are a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, a guilty pleasure. A guilty pleasure is something that you maybe don't really want to admit that you like a lot, or maybe it's not healthy for you, or for whatever reason you're a little bit ashamed of it, or you don't want to mention it, but you do really like it. It's pleasurable to you for whatever reason. Some people have guilty pleasures of junk food, right? Chips, candy, stuff like that, maybe they're They know they shouldn't eat Snickers, but they just love a Snickers every so often or ordering bad pizza. For example, some people like they know that this pizza place is not very good. Like objectively, like there's a better pizza place right around the corner. But sometimes they just really want that pizza. Um, that could be a guilty pleasure or in this case, uh, instant noodles, because they're not very healthy for you. They're not very good for you. And honestly, I'd often rather have a full prepared bowl of noodles, but it's a guilty pleasure because they're really good. Right there. I mean, they're engineers to taste a good, so they better be good. Um, And so I actually tend to prepare them a little bit differently than a lot of people, though, because I want it to be a little bit more of an experience. Because I can't just have cup noodles or a bowl of whatever instant noodles every day, because that would just be unhealthy. And I wouldn't really like it that way. And so I like to prepare mine a little bit more. For example, with instant ramen, I like to get the packages. They don't have a cup with them, so you have to put them in another bowl. Then I prepare a couple other things with it. I put some toppings on there. It's honestly not that special, right? I use some broth, some stock, right? So that's basically soup base that has been cooked with vegetables or bones of chicken or beef or something like that. And so you get this stock, which is a lot tastier than just water, and you do the soup in there. So you get a little bit of flavor out of that. And then I like to add things like broccoli or frozen dumplings, some simple toppings, whatever it might be. And then I do the instant ramen after. And so it's a lovely dinner that takes me 15, 20 minutes to make total. And it's a lot more satisfying than just a cup of noodles or a cup of ramen. because there's other things in it. There's some actual meat in there, because I usually do dumplings. And the broth makes it a lot richer and more flavorful. And so that's my preferred way to have instant noodles, is a soup, like a ramen one, with some other toppings on it. However, my favorite flavor that I found was from a Chinese brand, and it had, I don't really remember what it was, because I don't read any or speak any Chinese. And I just got a random package at the store, and I made it, and it was absolutely delicious. It had Sichuan peppercorns, is the only thing I know about it, which are a Chinese spice, I guess. I think it's a spice, or it's a peppercorn. but what it does is a little bit different than spicy, right? Spicy makes it feel like your mouth is burning or sort of on fire, but the Sichuan peppercorn makes your mouth feel like it's buzzing a little bit. It sort of activates your movement sensors in your mouth, and it gives you almost a bit of a numbing sensation. When something is numb, it means you can't feel it. So for example, if you like bump your elbow on the wall or something and your arm goes numb, right, you can't feel it, you go, oh, that feels so weird. It doesn't hurt, but it's numb. That's what Szechuan peppercorn does to your tongue a little bit. It might sound like a weird sensation if you've never tried it, but it's really, really good, especially because if you have it like with delicious broth and noodles, oh, it's amazing. But anyways, I bought this one ramen once, or I don't even think it's ramen since it's Chinese, but I don't honestly know that, no. So anyway, somebody can tell me in the comments, but I got this one soup at the store once and I've not been able to find it again. Because I went back and I bought what I thought was the same brand. I bought all of the different colors they had, because that's all I can do to tell the difference is the color. But it wasn't the same. They didn't have the same amazing sort of beefy, rich flavor in Szechuan peppercorns. And so I've sort of been on my hunt for that ramen again, or that soup again. but I just don't know what it was called because it was in Chinese and I don't read any Chinese. I really regret that now because I would know what the soup is called and be able to eat it again and complete my life. But anyways, the other ones are good too. They're not bad or anything. It's just I'm chasing that high, I guess, that amazing soup base. Here in Mexico, there's also a lot of different ways to prepare cup ramen or maruchan, which is the popular brand here. You can have them with corn and other things. There's a fairly common one that you can see on the streets because there's a street food called street corn or esquites elotes. You can use the water that is used to make the corn, and you can put the corn in the soup, and it becomes this very salty, really delicious cup of corn and noodles. Again, not very healthy, but it's very, very good. Or maybe you've seen some videos online of people using a cup of noodles to prepare something else, right? I think it's popular in all sorts of different tourist destinations because you take a food that everybody knows and understands, and then you make it more interesting and engaging. I've seen some ones on the coast of Mexico where they They prepare the cup of noodles with seafood. And so you get a maruchan with the shrimp flavor. And then you get actual shrimp and octopus and a bunch of other delicious vegetables and whatnot and lime juice. And it really looks amazing. I really want to try it, but I haven't been out to the coast in a long time. So I'll update you on when I try that. But the reason that I brought up this episode today is because one, I'm kind of hungry. And two is because I'm going to have instant noodles for the first time in quite a while. And it's a bit of a fancier package, right? Typically a cup of noodles is one or $2 or even cheaper if you're getting a cheap brand, but they're pretty cheap, right? They're not gourmet food. I mean, I think it's good food in terms of yumminess, but it's also, like I said, not very healthy. But this one that I got is a pretty big package. It's like a fancy one. I don't remember how expensive it was. I bought it a while ago, but it's got like a bunch of noodles and it has really nice, nicer packaging. And so I'm really excited to try it out because I've never had a This brand before, and I've never had a, this style of noodle either. It's a different, I don't even know what style it is. Again, the packaging is mostly in Chinese, so I don't know actually what it says. Um, but I'm excited to try it. It has, I think it has beef in it. I'm not sure if it's real beef or it's like freeze dried or something. Um, it's got thin noodles and I think it also has Sichuan peppercorn, so maybe I'll get to experience that, but I don't know. We'll see. Anyways, other things on instant noodles is I didn't really grow up with them. That wasn't a very common thing, right? My house tended to eat healthier food, but also it's not a great thing to prepare for multiple people because you have to do individual packets for each person and then it kind of just gets messy. And if you're cooking for a whole family, it kind of just makes more sense to do everything at once. But at a certain point, I started to get my own because I would start to eat on my own and it made a really good snack. That wasn't clear, hang on. At a certain point in my life when I was still living at home, I started buying my own cups of noodles because they made a great quick snack, right? I just wanted something easy and quick to eat in the middle of lunch and dinner or whatever. And so that's when I started to experiment a bit more with the various brands and flavors The store that was available to me didn't have a ton of options. Some stores have an entire aisle dedicated to just tons and tons of instant noodles. But I only had a couple of options, and so I went with those. But I have quite fond memories of that, honestly, because it's just a really quick and yummy food that you can make, and it's very satisfying. Soup is probably my favorite type of food. And so I just think upon instant noodles with fondness, I guess. So yeah, let me know. What do you think about instant noodles? Do you have them often? Or is there anything special about your country where they're eaten? Do people eat it in a special way? I'm curious to hear, so let me know. But that's my entire episode on instant noodles. I hope that you enjoyed listening to this podcast today. Um, and yeah, that's all that I have. And I'll see you again tomorrow for another episode of your daily dose of English. So have a great rest of your day. See you.
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