Ramen

Ramen (/ˈrɑːmən/) (ラーメン, rāmen, IPA: [ɽäꜜːmeɴ]) is a Japanese noodle soup dish. It consists of Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a meat- or (occasionally) fish-based broth, often flavored with soy sauce or miso, and uses toppings such as sliced pork (チャーシュー, chāshū), dried seaweed (海苔, nori), menma (メンマ, menma), and green onions (葱, negi). Nearly every region in Japan has its own variation of ramen, from the tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen of Kyushu to the miso ramen of Hokkaido.

History

The origin of ramen is unclear. Some sources say it is of Chinese origin. Other sources say it was invented in Japan in the early 20th century.

The name ramen is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese lamian (拉麺). Until the 1950s, ramen was called shina soba (支那そば, literally "Chinese soba") but today chūka soba (中華そば, also meaning "Chinese soba") or just Ramen (ラーメン) are more common, as the word "支那" (shina, meaning "China") has acquired a pejorative connotation.

By 1900, restaurants serving Chinese cuisine from Canton and Shanghai offered a simple ramen dish of noodles (cut rather than hand-pulled), a few toppings, and a broth flavored with salt and pork bones. Many Chinese living in Japan also pulled portable food stalls, selling ramen and gyōza dumplings to workers. By the mid-1900s, these stalls used a type of a musical horn called a charumera (チャルメラ, from the Portuguese charamela) to advertise their presence, a practice some vendors still retain via a loudspeaker and a looped recording. By the early Shōwa period, ramen had become a popular dish when eating out.

Ramen (disambiguation)

Ramen may refer to:

See also

Ender's Game (series)

The Ender's Game series (often referred to as the Enderverse or the Ender saga) is a series of science fiction books by Orson Scott Card. The series started with the novelette "Ender's Game" which was later expanded into the novel of the same title. It currently consists of fourteen novels, thirteen short stories, 47 comic issues, an audioplay, and a film. The first two novels in the series, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, each won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and were among the most influential science fiction novels of the 1980s.

The series is set in a future where mankind is facing annihilation by an aggressive alien society, an insect-like race known formally as "Formics", but more colloquially as "Buggers". The series protagonist, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, is one of the child soldiers trained at Battle School (and eventually Command School) to be the future leaders of the protection of Earth.

Enderverse

Ender series

Starting with Ender's Game, five novels have been released which tell the story of Ender (also known as the "Ender Quintet"). Card first wrote Ender's Game as a novelette, but went back and expanded it into a novel so he could use Ender in another novel, Speaker for the Dead. That novel takes place three thousand and two years after Ender's Game, although due to relativistic space travel, Ender himself (now using his full name Andrew) is only 36, making him only 25 years older than he was at the end of the Formic Wars.