Instant Mami and the Philosophy of Survival

I have a very long and complicated relationship with noodles—particularly the kind that comes in plastic wrappers with tiny silver packets of flavoring, known in this region as Instant Mami. Long before it became a billboard superstar or a celebrity-endorsed pantry staple, it was already an essential part of my childhood diet.

You see, my father was a sailor, and every ten months, he’d return home like a noodle-bearing Santa Claus, lugging boxes upon boxes of Nissin Ramen from Japan. A feast! A treasure! A five-month supply of what I now recognize as the true food of the future. At the time, I just thought of it as an endless bounty of easy, delicious meals. My mother—who, bless her, did not win the genetic lottery when it came to culinary skills—embraced these noodles with the enthusiasm of someone who had just unlocked the cheat codes to parenting.

If she was feeling under the weather? Noodles.
If she wasn’t in the mood to cook? Noodles.
If we, her children, so much as breathed in her direction asking what was for lunch? Take a wild guess.

The neighbors, in their unsolicited wisdom, would shake their heads and tell her that this was unhealthy. But miraculously, no one in the family ever got sick. Either we were the beneficiaries of some kind of MSG-based immunity, or Instant Mami was simply ahead of its time.

Chicken or Beef? The Existential Question

Back then, there were only two choices when it came to Instant Mami: chicken or beef. That was it. None of this Korean spicy seafood carbonara explosion nonsense we have today. Just the basics. And yet, even within that simplicity, there was an art to choosing.

Chicken Mami was for comfort. The kind of meal you’d want on a gloomy day, when you felt a little lonely or maybe just in need of something warm. Perhaps I got this idea from Chicken Soup for the Soul—a book I never actually got around to reading. (Who needed it when Chicken Mami for the Soul was right there in my bowl?) Steaming hot, cooked by my mother—how could that not be good for the soul?

Beef Mami, on the other hand, was for everyday survival. It was steady, reliable, and perfect with a handful of wilted pechay thrown in for good measure. Add an egg, and you had something bordering on gourmet. Mami and eggs—unbeatable.

Noodle University: A Higher Education

When I left for college, I thought I already knew everything there was to know about instant noodles. I was wrong.

College introduced me to people who treated noodles as a blank canvas, a base ingredient upon which anything was possible. Up until then, I had followed the instructions on the pack with religious precision. But my new peers? They saw no limits. They cooked noodles like spaghetti, like rice, like menudo, like pizza. They drowned them in ketchup. They sautéed them in oyster sauce. They set them on fire with chili flakes. I once saw someone eat them uncooked, like potato chips. It was—how do I put this—revolutionary.

This was the moment my noodle philosophy changed. Instant Mami wasn’t just food; it was a concept, a way of life, an edible testament to creativity, adaptability, and sheer human ingenuity.

And to this day, no matter how fancy my palate pretends to be, I still believe that nothing quite beats a hot bowl of noodles. Preferably chicken. Preferably cooked by my mother. Preferably with an egg.