His noodly appendage, Eastern edition

August 1, 2011 10:58 AM

It's not too late to start your observance of Ramendan, "[a] month of sacrifice in which followers eschew all other foodstuffs after sundown, to test their devotion to the almighty noodle." Sad to say, I'm familiar only with this version of the dish which seems to be more sacrilege than sacrament.
posted by idiolect (52 comments total)

Sacrilicious!
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:01 AM on August 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

This post is getting our troops killed in Iraq.
posted by DU at 11:01 AM on August 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Your mom is getting our troops killed in Iraq.
posted by Aizkolari at 11:03 AM on August 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

I can't believe you posted this, you momofuku.
posted by crunchland at 11:05 AM on August 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

futomaro?
posted by stenseng at 11:07 AM on August 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I can't believe this post snuck pasta moderators.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:07 AM on August 1, 2011 [22 favorites]

I am like this close to devoting my life to God (any God!) simply for the promise of an afterlife free of Flying Spaghetti Monster humor.
posted by griphus at 11:08 AM on August 1, 2011 [34 favorites]

Twitter bait.
posted by Ardiril at 11:08 AM on August 1, 2011

Boy, this joke never gets old.
posted by Legomancer at 11:08 AM on August 1, 2011

...because it was born old?
posted by notsnot at 11:09 AM on August 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

The sad part is, centuries from now people will fight over Italian-style pasta versus Asian-style noodles as the favored dish of his holiness, the FSM.
posted by Renoroc at 11:10 AM on August 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I am like this close to devoting my life to God (any God!) simply for the promise of an afterlife free of Flying Spaghetti Monster humor.

I'm willing to put up with FSM humor as long as I get to Heaven with the Stripper Factory and Beer Volcanoes.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 11:12 AM on August 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

I was already planning to make ramen curry tonight.
posted by Malice at 11:13 AM on August 1, 2011

Boy, this joke never gets old.

Pasta it's sell-by date, you mean?
posted by BlueHorse at 11:14 AM on August 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

They guy behind this is a friend of mine, Jed (also #1 on the leaderboard right now). He is also the guy who created Pastebud (URL now taken by squatters), which implemented a limited form of copy/paste in the iPhone's browser using Javascript before Apple got around to it.
posted by adamrice at 11:15 AM on August 1, 2011

Heaven with the Stripper Factory and Beer Volcanoes

That sounds kinda stinky and skanky. I'm down for pie heaven, myself.

FWIW there will be delicious noodles on playa this year. 4:30 and B, Sundown Mon-Fri.
posted by poe at 11:15 AM on August 1, 2011

Btw, Top Ramen tastes so much better (and has fewer ingredients) than Maruchan, but all packaged ramen needs the 'flavor packet' to be tossed into the garbage immediately.

However, street vendor Ramen is best.
posted by Malice at 11:15 AM on August 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

My wife left me because of my fetish for handling pasta. I thought I'd get by OK on my own, but now I'm feeling cannelloni.
/old joke
posted by Abiezer at 11:19 AM on August 1, 2011 [29 favorites]

My wife left me because of my fetish for handling pasta. I thought I'd get by OK on my own, but now I'm feeling cannelloni.
/old joke
posted by Abiezer at 7:19 PM on August 1

Orzo you say.
posted by Decani at 11:25 AM on August 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

pie heaven, myself

IT'S SKY CAKE!
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 11:51 AM on August 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

So, did the creators actually intentionally make it Ramen-dan, instead of Ramen-don?
posted by FJT at 11:52 AM on August 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, did the creators actually intentionally make it Ramen-dan, instead of Ramen-don?

not sure i understand your question, but the name is clearly a play on ramadan.
posted by jjoye at 12:03 PM on August 1, 2011

I don't know about this Ramendan business. To me, it simply appears to be another way for a religious institution to slap dogmatic laws on ya.
posted by secondhand pho at 12:17 PM on August 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

"So, did the creators actually intentionally make it Ramen-dan, instead of Ramen-don?"

Considering the bulk of the site's content focuses on getting people to post on Twitter (the remainder of the content being the pun in the URL), I doubt the site's creators gave much thought regarding intent.
posted by Ardiril at 12:19 PM on August 1, 2011

not sure i understand your question, but the name is clearly a play on ramadan.

Well, the pronunciation of the "-dan" in "Ramadan" is more like "dahn". In Japanese "don" is pronounced "dahn", while ""dan" is pronounced like the male name. And both "don" and "dan" have meanings in Japanese that could describe what Ramendan is. Obviously Ramendan is a play on Ramadan. But the creators added a point system, are they also talking about a series of steps or levels, otherwise known as "dan"?
posted by FJT at 2:51 PM on August 1, 2011

Completely baffled by the mefi reaction to this. That is all.
posted by tehloki at 3:02 PM on August 1, 2011

Sounds like a good way to put on a lot of weight.

I don't know about this Ramendan business. To me, it simply appears to be another way for a religious institution to slap dogmatic laws on ya. posted by secondhand pho at 12:17 PM on August 1
Eponysterical?
posted by Joe Chip at 3:17 PM on August 1, 2011

My favorite ramen hack: Saute half a bunch of spinach in one or two tablespoons of olive oil with sliced clove or two of garlic. Add sauteed spinach to already prepared bowl of chicken ramen soup along with a large glug of Annie's Goddess Salad Dressing. Yum...
posted by marsha56 at 3:39 PM on August 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Mek, Kaspen and I roasted a suckling pig last weekend. We used the head and spine to make tonkotsu broth. Then we made the noodles with a pasta maker. It was indeed sacrilicious.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 3:45 PM on August 1, 2011

But what if I'm not hungry?
posted by ambulocetus at 4:00 PM on August 1, 2011

I can tolerate the wan satire of FSM when it's used for promoting secularism and keeping religion out of schools etc etc, but for me when the focus is more on mocking other people's personal religious beliefs - during the period when they are specifically practicing them - it seems more like a kind of watered-down western liberal bigotry married to crappy viral marketing crap than anything at all worthwhile in any way.
posted by smoke at 4:05 PM on August 1, 2011 [17 favorites]

Any religion that can't bear satire is the sort that needs satire the most, imho.
posted by kurosawa's pal at 4:34 PM on August 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Any religion that can't bear satire is the sort that needs satire the most, imho.

I'm neither stating nor implying that Islam cannot bear satire; I am saying that I personally find bad satire like this (if that's indeed what it is) to be reflexive, unthinking, and somewhat disrespectful. I don't really go in for mocking religions merely because they're religions, or I might not understand their practices or find them irrational or trivial in my own life, despite being 100% an atheist.
posted by smoke at 5:25 PM on August 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

MeTa
posted by griphus at 5:32 PM on August 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm not an atheist, nor am I a proselytizer, and I've long loved FSM. (ok, 60% loved, 10% worshiped, and 30% eaten). I mean, some of the things we (as humans) do are WEIRD - making religion strictly "off limits" when looking at the weird things we do just rubs me wrong.

That's just to say, I don't get all the hate here. FSM has always been an equal opportunity religion satirizer though, like the USA, "equal" skews heavily Christian. So "Ramendan" seems, to me, indicative of a broadening and deepening of the religions and cultures skewered by the FSM base, and that strikes me as pretty cool.

I'm also getting shades of that weird type of "I'm not prejudiced" prejudice that happens when non-Caucasian/Christian/Euro/American cultures are mentioned in a parody and people see prejudice where the point is something else entirely -- but maybe I'm misinterpreting the hate? Sorry if that was kind of confusing, and I'll admit I'm pretty confused, but please, enlighten me about what's wrong with Ramendan.
posted by lesli212 at 5:56 PM on August 1, 2011

Ramendan is whenever I'm too broke to afford real food. Ramen don is noodles with soup.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 6:28 PM on August 1, 2011

*sigh*

Did nobody get my "laws on ya" joke, or was it just not that clever?

I thought it to be one of my better efforts.
posted by secondhand pho at 7:37 PM on August 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Unfunny. Like packaged ramen itself, this is tasteless and has no substance.
posted by spitbull at 8:01 PM on August 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

If packaged ramen has fewer than three flavor packets, like most American ramen, it's tasteless and terrible. But once you have packaged ramen from a country that takes ramen seriously, ramen is great. It took a long time for me to discover that there were so many types of packaged ramen. Indomie is my favorite. Indonesian ramen in general tends to be best. A typical variety comes with packets of oil with garlic flakes, soy sauce, fried onions, chili powder, and various other spices and veggies. It is wonderful. You guys need to forget about Top Ramen and Maruchan.
posted by painquale at 8:51 PM on August 1, 2011

If people feel compelled to do some sort of anti-Ramadan stunt, surely it would be better to spend a month on nothing but bacon & single malt.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:52 PM on August 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

My favorite ramen hack

"Hack"? Is ... that what we're calling recipes, now?
posted by Sebmojo at 9:12 PM on August 1, 2011

My favorite ramen hack

"Hack"? Is ... that what we're calling recipes, now?

There's recipes, and there's 'keep a jar of good sweet chili sauce in the fridge to make instant noodles taste like food'. the latter is a hack
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:24 PM on August 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Did nobody get my "laws on ya" joke, or was it just not that clever?

E-pho-nisterical!

Since this thing's been MeTa-ed, perhaps those who don't like it should macaroni post.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:39 PM on August 1, 2011

Yes, it would be better than fighting it out. After all, the penne's mightier than the sword.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:43 PM on August 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

There's recipes, and there's 'keep a jar of good sweet chili sauce in the fridge to make instant noodles taste like food'. the latter is a hack.

It's pretty common to put chili sauce in noodles dude. That's not a "hack." It's a condiment.
posted by eyeballkid at 11:56 PM on August 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Anyone know the original Ramendan post from venganza.org? Pbbt! It's odd that Ramendan is better explained at urban dictionary. I did notice these gems however :

Pastafarianism in the military
PZ Myers responds to Pastafarian
Is it time for an FSM billboard?
Awkward Billboard is Awkward
(venganza.org mostly discusses "sightings", i.e. playing with your food)
posted by jeffburdges at 12:12 AM on August 2, 2011

Anyone who has eaten real ramen knows that using that term to refer to instant noodles is a form of sacrilege.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 2:28 AM on August 2, 2011

Lutherans save their version of comfort noodles for colder weather. But once the calendar turns past Thanksgiving, everyone is welcome down in the basement after service for hot dish (from the Ladies Auxiliary) and pot luck, and there will be plenty of our special coffee, too.
posted by paulsc at 4:47 AM on August 2, 2011

mmmmmmmmmm, sacrilicious
posted by Redhush at 12:47 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Man, the Japanese are cleaning up on the leader board.
posted by charred husk at 12:47 PM on August 2, 2011

Since this thing's been MeTa-ed, perhaps those who don't like it should macaroni post.

Macaroni has some very interesting history. It kinda somehow became a term of derision in a homophobic / dandy / village idiot sense. Not all at the same time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaroni_(fashion)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Doodle
posted by uncanny hengeman at 9:24 PM on August 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Place by my house has handmade ramen noodles. I could get behind eating there for all of Ramendan.

Instant ramen is nothing more than flour mixed with sodium. The flavor packs are vile.

Also, FSM is tired and pointless.
posted by Existential Dread at 9:12 PM on August 3, 2011