What a waste. & one of my favorite children’s books.

CNN has just reported the creation of the world’s smallest ramen bowl.
Mechanical engineering professor Masayuki Nakao said Thursday that he and his students at the University of Tokyo used a carbon-based material to produce a noodle bowl with a diameter of 1/25,000 of an inch.

The ramen bowl experiment included a string of “noodles” that measured 1/12,500 of an inch in length.

I don’t understand. WHY? Playing God with nanotubes is all fine and dandy, but of all things, why would you create a microscopic bowl of noodles?

Course, I’m biased toward this type of experimentation. I am addicted to soup noodles. My quintessential comfort food is a big, deep bowl of hot, steamy pho. If I was on that team from the University of Tokyo, I’d be like “Fuck this, let’s fill an aircraft carrier with noodles as thick as monster octopus tentacles.”

There are a number of studies that point to the central role of carbohydrates in the realm of comfort foods, but I think part of my love for soup and the accompaniment of all things pasta/noodle also stems from a Tomie dePaola book from 1975. (Holy shit, really?? I wasn’t even born then!) “Bubble, bubble, pasta pot” – It’s Strega Nona!

This is Strega Nona:

And this is her magic pasta pot:

Strega Nona is a witch with a pasta pot that makes pasta. Like, its name is “Mayka’s Dream Machine” and its sole purpose is “to consistently produce strings of carbs, especially for the enjoyment of anti-Atkins dieters everywhere.”

I can still hear Dom DeLuise’s voice reading me Strega Nona’s story from my My First Sony cassette player. (It also had animal and drum sounds. The original cassette probably has random lion roars where “Turn the Page” bells should be.)

Isn’t that the type of thing accomplished Japanese scientists should be working on? A ramen pot to end world hunger? Seems more purposeful, and just imagine all the cute little songs you could sing about it!

This book is in my top three of children’s stories, hands-down. Reading the story about the story makes me smile, too. Just look at the cute little man, Tomie dePaola. Plus he has an Airedale. Jolly nostalgia, all around!