FLAVOR FLAV

Let me ask you a couple of questions. And by you I mean those of you who eat ramen noodles. And by that I mean those of you who prepare them the same way I do, since these questions may not apply otherwise. (Por ejemplo, I don't of anyone who eats them in soup form.) I crush the block of noodles before cooking, I drain them and eat them dry, adding the full flavor packet plus a little butter (and by butter I mean any butter-like substance) to help distribute the flavor evenly.

So the first question is, do you experience the same fleeting moment I do in the middle of preparing/eating ramen, where the word "MAGGOTS" flashes in your brain? It's very brief, it passes, and you continue. But let's all face the hard truth here. At some point, ramen resembles maggots. Usually right after you drain them. Frankly, it's the slimy quality that really sells it IMHO. (Of course many of you may not have had the same experience I had many years ago when I had a neighbor who didn't keep house too well and I offered to wash the heap of dirty dishes in their long-abandoned sink and at a certain point I picked up one dish and saw a tiny little party going on in the dish underneath and ran away screaming.)



Now the second and more important question I have about ramen noodles (and I ask for your feedback on this one especially at ducksoup2009@yahoo.com) is this:

Can you tell the different flavors apart?

I can't. I've tried just about every flavor there is (well, not mushroom, that would be disgusting) and I simply cannot discern any diff. Am I the only one? But what do you expect for 20 cents? Whatever profit Maruchan is making is clearly not going into flavor development. They just make them varying shades of brown or yellow and screw any further effort.

Their role model on this point? Two words. Froot Loops.



How many of you were weird kids like me? Well, okay, nobody's as weird as me, but were you at least weird enough to do what I did at least once and go through an entire box of Froot Loops separating the colors so you could then have a bowl of just the orange ones and then a bowl of yellow and then a bowl of red? (And yes, I know there's more colors now, you spoiled little brats, shut up!)

Yeah, you know you did it. You know you got bored one rainy day and segregated your Froot Loops, admit it. Cereal racist!

And could you tell any difference in flavor between the different Froot Loop colors? Neither could I. Oh, sure, Toucan Sam led us to believe we could. That lying son of a cunt. "Orange, lemon, and cherry!"

BULLSHIT!

But I suppose there was a valuable lesson there for all of us. It doesn't matter what color or flavor your flavor packet is, you can help feed people for cheap or just be a slimy maggot. And no matter what color of the rainbow, you can be just as frooty as the next loop.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've been sitting here typing too long. I need to separate my Crunch Berries.

***

PS: Back in the day when TV shows would try to avoid any product placement, and would cover up any brand names, I remember some pretty lame attempts at such. (Like we wouldn't be able to tell it was a can of Pepsi just because they covered up the word "Pepsi" but not the rest of the logo!) By far the lamest attempt I ever saw was on some sitcom in a scene at the breakfast table: A big box of "ROOT OOPS".

OOPS!