RAMEN
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To call ramen the national dish of Japan would, on one hand, be perfectly valid. But on the other hand, it’s kind of cheating, because ramen isn’t really just one dish — it’s more of an umbrella term for hundreds, if not thousands, of dishes, albeit ones that share a common genealogy and key characteristics. It’s better to think of ‘ramen’ as a term like ‘pasta’ — yes, there are obvious and important connections between the various pasta dishes, but that doesn’t mean lasagne al forno and tortellini in brodo are the same thing. Similarly, a clear yuzu-scallop shio ramen is very different from a rich and spicy tan tan men.
With its many stylistic and regional variations, ramen encompasses a huge range of flavours, textures and styles. Like many Japanese art forms, it can be beautifully restrained and minimalistic, but it can also be aggressive: a gut-punch of animal fat and salt. There’s no version that might be described as ‘the’ ramen — no platonic ideal of the dish. Quite the contrary — to truly understand ramen, you have to embrace its
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