In Japan, ramen is an art form you can dedicate your life to perfecting, in some tiny shop in the warrens of the city. And in my hometown, it’s a 10 cent lunch. But outside my fevered faux poetic brain it is also 10 cents in Japan and can be had at some fairly greasy spoons in the warrens of the city.

I like instant ramen because it is very pre-lingual: fill bowl to fill line with boiling water, wait 3 minutes, eat. There are more complex ones, but you can only go so far wrong. The most difficult are the bowl-less, where you have to find the number next to cc and thank your stars for the metric system.

I just had the swankiest instant ramen I’ve ever eaten: there was a photo of the shop and famous chef on the lid! Or perhaps he was a very cheflike sponsor? It was delicious and full of exotic ingredients that I’m sure I didn’t properly appreciate.

And after recent complaints about the dearth of flying cars, I must point out that ramen is your ideal food for space stations, plankton farming villages on the ocean floor, and cloud cities. Just add hot water!