Noodles to Last a Lifetime

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

I was chatting with some friends the other day about what we would want to have if we were stuck on a desert island and could only eat a few foods for the rest of our lives. This all started when we were at a restaurant where in lieu of bread they served the most addictive wasabi popcorn. Our waitress insisted that if she could only have one food for the rest of her life, on this imaginary deserted island, it would be just that, popcorn.

It takes a rather intense love of a food to think you could eat it every day if you had to. As I posed this question later on to a number of friends their faces would slip into this zone of remembered pleasure as their mind’s eye reminisced on its most treasured eating experiences.

One friend said she could eat artichokes: boiled or steamed whole then served alongside a homemade aioli. Another friend said she would want peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ice cream. After all, it’s a deserted island, so getting fat isn’t really a concern if you are going to be all alone with your favorite food for the rest of your life. Still another friend said she would want an unlimited supply of fruit, a reasonable request as I can picture low-hanging papayas and mangoes on this island. I, too, might be very happy on such a diet.

But for me the answer is fairly simple: the noodle. I could eat noodles day in and out every meal for the rest of my life if I needed to. Since the rules of this game of imaginary islands are fairly flexible, I am thinking I would want that noodle to be available to me in as many varieties as possible and from every cuisine I can think of.

For breakfast I would look to Vietnam for there is no better breakfast of champions than the steaming bowl of rice noodle soup they call phò. When done right, this breakfast soup is more satisfying in flavor and more filling than any plate of bacon and eggs. Rice noodles are mostly cooked then placed in a bowl where they are topped with paper thin slices of raw beef. A steaming hot beef broth laced with anise is poured into the bowl, finishing the cooking of the noodles and fully cooking the beef.

A plate of condiments including bean sprouts, lime wedges, basil, and jalapenos are served alongside to season your bowl to your individual taste. Chili sauces and fish sauce are also added to taste. The result is a nuanced bowl of goodness with slippery rice noodles picking up the spicy, salty, herby flavors of the broth as I shuttle them into my mouth with chopsticks.

For lunch, dinner--heck, I’m on a deserted island I might just eat it for breakfast too--there may be no noodle as simple and wonderful as homemade Italian pasta. Having just purchased the Kitchen Aid attachment for rolling and cutting pasta, I am further reminded of just how much better fresh made pasta is, even coming from my less-than-Italian hands.

It amazes me how the simple combination of eggs, flour, and water can be transformed into shapes as varied as long strips of medium thick linguine, perfect for wrapping around clams and clinging to a light white wine sauce. Or penne, smallish tubes of pasta perfect for hiding a meat ragu or clinging to a cheesy crust when baked. The best thing about pasta, especially when it is homemade or of very high quality, is it needs little more than a dressing of olive oil and garlic for the perfectly filling lunch or light supper.

The old story that Marco Polo introduced pasta to Italy on his return from China may be little more than a myth, but it is clear that noodles made of millet were eaten in China as early as 2000 BC. The Chinese over the years spread their noodle-making ways to all their surrounding neighbors resulting in the ramen, udon, and soba of Japan, the rice noodles of Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, and the innumerable variations on noodles within their own country. Whether eating a big bowl of hand pulled noodles in Hong Kong or fried noodles chow mein style there is nothing like getting noodles from their birth place.

Eating one food for the rest of one’s life might sounds like a challenge, but I think I’m up for it. Sure artichokes are great and unlimited fruit would be divine, but with 4000 years of history behind it and a world of cultures preparing it their own ways, I’m pretty sure that the noodle would be the perfect dining companion with which to live out the rest of my days.

Serves/Makes: 4

• 6 ounces thick cut prosciutto
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 pound asparagus
• 1/4 cup packed basil
• 1 pound fresh linguine pasta
• salt
• black pepper
• 1 glass white wine
• Parmesan cheese