In a grocery store in New York\u2019s Lower East Side, Coss Marte grabs items off the shelves. \u201cRight now we\u2019re looking for the Doritos, because Doritos and ramen [instant] noodle soup,\u201d he says. \u201cGet two bags, spice it up a bit\u2026 that\u2019s how you make a prison burrito.\u201d He pauses, staring at the plastic packs of noodles. \u201cThis really is survival food in prison.\u201d Marte began dealing drugs in New York City when he was 12 years old; at 15, he was sent to prison for a year, the first of three such stints. During those stretches, he came to understand the importance of the starchy concoction dubbed the \u2018prison burrito\u2019.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the role of instant noodles in US prisons was revealed by sociologist Michael Gibson-Light, who made the discovery while researching prison jobs. They\u2019re coveted, and not merely as a casual snack: instant noodles have replaced cigarettes as the most traded item in many US prisons.<\/p>\n

The United States has more known prisoners than any other country \u2013 2.2 million at last count. It\u2019s a huge market, and an increasingly hungry one. Prison budgets have been slashed, and most US jails now feed inmates only the minimum number of calories per day; many offer just two meals each a day on weekends.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re in prison and you want or need more food than you can get from the chow line, you have to buy it yourself,\u201d Gibson-Light explains. \u201cThe costs of nutrition have shifted to prisoners themselves. Instant noodles are a go-to because they\u2019re cheap.\u201d Over time, noodles became so valuable that inmates began to use them as currency. \u201cThey\u2019re easily stored and they\u2019re non-perishable, so they can be kept for a very long time, and you would have almost like a bank account,\u201d explains former prisoner Chandra Bozelko, adding that prisoners use noodles to pay each other for needful things \u2013 even, she believes, sex.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise: instant noodles are both widespread and popular. Basic instant noodles are the cheapest items on sale in most prison stores, costing about US$1 for three packs. And it\u2019s for similar reasons that, over the 60 years since their invention, instant noodles have also played a significant role in the economies of China and Japan, as well as becoming a familiar, even beloved food for anyone short on money, time or a kitchen. In their birthplace, Japan, they have repeatedly been voted the nation\u2019s most successful invention, ahead of high-speed trains, laptops and LED lights.<\/p>\n

Ramen became popular in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s as a working-class comfort food <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
The culinary ancestry of dried noodles can be traced back to an early form of ramen brought to Japan by Chinese chefs in the 1880s. In its most basic form, this dish comprised wheat noodles served in a soupy broth with slices of meat or tofu on top.<\/p>\n
The original was eaten by the bowlful by both foreign and Japanese labourers, becoming particularly popular in the 1920s and 1930s as working-class comfort food. Over the decades, that simple recipe was continually adapted and enhanced by imaginative chefs flaunting their skills by making complex broths, perfectly textured noodles and an ever-expanding variety of toppings.<\/p>\n
Need for noodles<\/h3>\n
The Second World War<\/a> changed everything. Large tracts of urban Japan were destroyed by bombing; the US Strategic Bombing Survey estimated that 104,000 tonnes of bombs were dropped on Japanese cities between January 1944 and August 1945. The country was broken.<\/p>\n
In August 1945, a week after atomic bombs<\/a> obliterated Hiroshima<\/a> and Nagasaki<\/a>, Japanese emperor Hirohito spoke directly to his people for the first time in a radio address (albeit pre-recorded) broadcast to the nation. He told his subjects that \u201cthe hardships and sufferings to which our nation is to be subjected hereafter will be certainly great\u201d.<\/p>\n
The broadcast\u2019s poor quality, coupled with the formal Japanese language used by the emperor, meant that many who heard his words didn\u2019t understand them. But even those people soon learned that their country had accepted the terms of surrender, and quickly came to understand the hardships they would face.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As the war approached its end, much Japanese infrastructure had been shattered. In the absence of a working government, the surviving population had to make do with meagre food supplies, and ramen noodles all but disappeared. Bombing had destroyed almost half of the infrastructure in Japan\u2019s 60 largest cities, and left a large proportion of the population homeless.<\/p>\n
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