Not just a Chinese invention - they’re the original fast food

The earliest written records from any culture talking about noodles date to the East Han Dynasty, about 2000 years ago. Recent archaeological excavations have uncovered actual 4000-year-old noodles at a site in Qinghai in remote western China.

During the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE) - the height of Silk Road trade and cultural exchange - cities like ancient Chang’an (today’s Xi’an) hosted 24-hour noodle shops! Even today, noodle stands and quick-serve restaurants can be found in most every neighborhood all across East Asia.

           

Noodles are such an important part of everyday life that legend has wound its way around them. To cut a cooked noodle is considered unlucky, as long noodles represent long life and respect for the elderly. “Cold noodle” was invented by China’s only female emperor to commemorate the love she had to leave for life in the palace. “Harmony noodle” - where you eat the noodles but save the broth for cooking more noodles in - celebrates the release of Emperor Zhou from political prison and his gratitude to the residents of his hometown.

Many names, many kinds

There are three main families of Chinese noodles, based on the main ingredient: wheat flour, rice flour, or starch. Within each noodle family there are many varieties; as much diversity as you’ll find in the pasta aisle of your local supermarket. Depending on the part of China where each noodle type is commonly used, it may have different names from different dialects - and it will be called something else altogether in Japanese, Thai, Korean, Tagalog, or Hawaiian. Manufacturers selling noodles to Western markets may even package them using Italian names!

In the West, due to successive waves of immigration from different parts of China, the common names we use for different kinds of noodles (and Chinese dishes in general) may be Cantonese, or Hokkien, or Mandarin, or Japanese ... or nonsense Chinglish...

How noodles are used in everyday eating will also differ depending on the region. The north, with its colder and drier climate, grew wheat as its main source of carbohydrates. You may not think of bread as a common Chinese food, but the further north you go the more bakeries become common, and thick wheat noodles are often the basis for many meals. In fact, the word “mian” means both “flour” and “noodle” in the north - while in the south it is understood just as “noodle.”

In the south, rice of course is plentiful, plus beans and tapioca, so carbohydrates come from a wide range of sources. Wheat-based products had to be imported from the north - so were comparatively more expensive - and so wheat noodles became more of a novelty or luxury item, with more experimentation leading to new dishes.

                   

Southerners might say northern noodles are uninspired; northerners might say southern noodles are too pretentious. But that won’t stop them from enjoying a meal from any part of the country.

What they’re made of

Wheat noodles can be made with or without eggs. In southern China, duck eggs are often used instead of chicken eggs to achieve a thinner and more pliable effect, whereas in the north, lye is added to flour and water to make the noodles soft.

Like with pasta, different kinds of wheat give different textures, flavors, and cooking properties. Buckwheat is a popular substitution for white flour, but semolina flour is not at all common (when you have to cook for many and have to watch your fuel, a noodle that takes 10-20 minutes to prepare is not going to work.) Wheat flour combines well with vegetables and flavorings, such as spinach, tomatoes, peppers, or tea, and those designer-flavors are finding their way into markets and trendy restaurants.

As there are many variations in what goes into a wheat-flour noodle, there are many cooking methods for them as well, including boiling, steaming, pan-frying and deep-frying.

Rice flour doesn’t integrate well with many other starches, and its cooking time is rather fast. (You won’t be seeing artisan rice-flax-sun-dried-tomato noodles anytime soon.) After boiling, noodles will hold up for a little while for stir-fry or in soup, but work better folded in at the last moment, or added directly to soup before serving. This is why leftover pho never tastes quite as good as fresh.

Starch flour usually comes from the mung bean, but is often mixed with tapioca flour or sometimes wheat gluten by-products. Soy bean curd sheets are often used similarly to noodles for certain dishes but don’t have the cooking properties to be a decent substitute.

Here are some of the most popular types of noodles you’ll find in China and North America:

       

Wheat Noodles:

1. •Lo mein
   

2. •Cho mein - in Japan, it became Udon - very thick noodles, almost a square cross-section. Can be bought dried, but also available in convenient frozen bricks. The noodle commonly used in Taiwan- and Shanghai-style Beef Noodle Soup.
   

3. •La mian - in Japan, it became Ramen - and then went on to conquer the world, one college student at a time
   

4. •Cold noodles
   

5. •Yi mian (yi fu - or - E-fu) - flour is mixed directly with egg; no water is used. This is said to be the “must have” noodle. It comes packaged in large round cakes:
   

6.          

   

   
   

Rice Noodles:

1. •Guo tiao (in Vietnamese, “pho”, for which the soup is named)
   

2. •Lai fun - thicker noodles
   

3. •Mi fun, or rice vermicelli - thinner noodles
   

Starch Noodles:

1. •Fen si (Bean threads)
   

2. •Mung bean sheets (more fettucini-sized than an actual sheet)
   

3. •Hu tieu (strictly extreme south China and Vietnam, used in the cold salad by the same name)