Textbooks to learn ramen, udon, and soba to better your business
If interested in purchasing one or more of the books, please let us know which book(s) you want and your shipping address. We’ll send you a quote including shipping to your location.
(Note: The books listed below are used in Yamato Noodle School, and included in the tuition fees)
Ramen Soup
¥35,000
The secrets of noodle soup production nobody else would share with you…
This is the book that broke the taboo of the industry, teaching ramen soup. This book discloses the inside out of unspoken, secret methodologies, knowledge, techniques, and processes of ramen soup.
Excerpt:
There’s a secret to delicious soup – The Power of Flavored Oil
The basics of making the delicious soup are not only choosing good ingredients, but also caring about aroma, umami and the oil.
It is said that people who love Ramen can know if the Ramen restaurant serves good Ramen or not, just by walking past the restaurants and smelling the Ramen they serve. In short, restaurants using good ingredients for the soup have a beautiful aroma rising from the soup which attracts the curiosity of customers. Aroma is an important element to stimulate one’s appetite. Professor Shinya Fuke from the biology department of Tokyo Gakugei University, explains that the secret of the umami flavor of Ramen lies in the oil. According to Fuke, Ramen is characterized by the oil “floating” on the soup, and immersing the noodles in this oil makes the noddles taste even better.
Much oil arises from the chicken bones and pork bones which are the base of Ramen soup and most restaurants add another oil – which would represent their speciality – into the bowl before pouring the soup in. Two types of Ramen were made as a trial, one was “Ramen without oil” in which oil floating on the soup in stockpot was removed as much as possible and the noodles were not immersed in the oil, and the other one was “Ramen with oil” which was cooked normally by using the same soup as the soup before. Both Ramen were covered with lids, so they could not be recognized by the looks and only the noodles were eaten and compared by some people. As a result, everyone judged that the Ramen “with oil” was more delicious.
As both Ramen “without oil” and “with oil” were made with exactly the same soup, it was understood that there was no difference in the amount of the Umami content as a result of the analysis. Still, everyone found the “Ramen with oil” more delicious. Professor Fuke says that the oil has a function of stimulating the cells of the tasting buds which are responsible for sensing the taste, and therefore, the oil makes the Umami of the ramen taste stronger.
Furthermomre, the oil, an important source of energy for maintaining life, stimulates not only the tongue but also the brain. There is a sensor at the base of the tongue that feel the oil, and once it senses it, the brain gets stimulated with recognition that “energy has been acquired”. Then the intracerebral, narcotic-like substance “beta-endorphine”, gets secreted which brings pleasurable sensation. In short, with oil, we sense strong Umami and with the pleasure sensation triggered by oil, our brain thinks it’s delicious. Therefore, Ramen withou oil as described previously weakened the sense of deliciousness.
Ramen with oil, which is enjoyed by immersing the noodles in the oil floating on the surface of the soup, stimulates the tongue and the brain, and thus makes it taste strong and more delicious.
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Textbook of achieving success in Ramen, Udon, Soba Restaurants, even in Recession
¥2,200
How can a ever-thriving restaurant that is immune to recesion be built? This book is used in the 2-day management lecture at Yamato Noodle School that puts many thriving restaurants out by teaching know-hows on how to manageand launch successful restaurants. The subjects it touches on ranges from determination of concept of restuarant, menu development, financing, deciding on location, designing of floor plan of a restaurant, and much more.
“I want to open my own noodle shop, but I don’t know where to start.” “I’m afraid of failing in business.” “I want to increase the sales of my current shop.” If you have worries about your business, read this book first.
This book offers a lot of useful information about successful noodle shop business. Even if your business is not a noodle shop, the book provides you with many tips and hints on how to succeed in business even during a recession. Obviously, reading the book does not make your business successful. What makes your business successful is your actions on what you learn from it.
Written by Kaoru Fujii, the master of Yamato Noodle School. For over 30 years, Fujii has visited thousands of noodle shops to examine their businesses. Based on his extensive experience and proven track record in the Japanese noodle making, Fujii has compiled a business know-how book. This book is used as a textbook for the business management lecture at Yamato Noodle Schools.
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Esoteric Techniques of Udon Noodle Making
¥3,600
This book contains knowledge of raw materials of udon noodle, processes and know-hows of hand making and machine making of udon noodle, amassed over the years of research and practices. It is a perfect book for you who aims for a master to serve delicious udon noodles.
Excerpt:
History of Udon in Japan
According to “Ryono Gige” (practical guide of ordinances put together in the 8th century) and “Wamyo-rui Jusho” (dictionary compiled during Heian period), kona, the Chinese character meaning flour, referred to ground up grains of rice and men, the character currently used for noodles, referred to pulverized wheat berries. In ancient times, men originally referred to the primary ingredient wheat. However, it eventually became the generic term for long strips of the dough made from wheat. Although there are various theories, togashi (to= Tang Dynasty, gashi= sweets) imported by a Japanese envoy to China during the Tang Dynasty, such as sakubeim houtou and wonton. The name is generally thought to have evolved from wonton, which changed to undon and eventually became Udon.
Although the ingredients had changed depending on the era, the noodles were all hand-pulled at that time. Sakubei evolved into sakumen and finally became somen and udon. The kneaded dough was cut in to strands and then stretched over two sticks to wrap them in a twisting motion. Houtou was made by boiling the dough after it had been rolled out and cut into squares or formed into thumb-nail sized balls and then flattened. The hand-pulling method used in making sakubei and the techniques of flattening the dough by hand or the method of cutting rolled out dough to make houtou now provides the basis of udon making.
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Ultimate Ramen – Science-Based, Innovative Noodle Making Technologies
¥4,200
A variety of ramen noodles, low-, medium-, high- liquid noodles, handmade style noodle, dipping noodle, and much more. This one book reveals Yamato methodologies to make any types of ramen noodles.
Excerpt:
Where did the name ramen come from?
The origins of the name “Ramen” date back to the 11th year of the Taisho period (1922). In Sapporo, the restaurant Takeya was opened. The owner was Shoji Okubo. The restaurant was a common one, which only Chinese students from Hokkaido University sometimes visited. One day, a sailor from Muroran brought a Chinese cook whose name was Wang Wen Cai to the restaurant without an appointment or invitation. Shoji Okubo, who got an insight into the cook’s excellent skills, changed his restaurant’s name to “Chinese Restaurant Takeya”. This led to the patronage of a large number of customers from Hokkaido University. Takeya offered full-fledged dishes and among them, the best-selling one was shina-soba (shina= old Jap. word for “China”) topped with thin strips of deep-fried pork. However, the name of the dish became controversial. Japanese people who visited the restaurant called the dish “chan-soba”. Chan was a disparaging term for Chinese people at that time. Tatsu, the wife of Shoji Okubo, was embarrassed and changed the name of the dish to “ryumen”, but it didn’t catch on. Then Tatsu found that the cook Wang always yelled “Hao laa” from the kitchen when he had cooked the dish. She was very impressed with the loud voice that accented the “laa” and thus it is said that she decided to name the dish “laamen”. For Japanese, it is difficult to identify the difference between the sounds “ra” and “la”. Ramen in Chinese characters refers to the method of making the noodles, which is said to have been proposed by a student from China.
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