He Touched Many Lives ...

You may not have known him. You likely have never heard of him.

But I doubt very much if your life wasn't touched by his in one way or another ...

In University, I like many others lived off of Kraft Dinner, canned soup, and Instant Noodles ...

In our kitchen today are a variety of bagged Instant Noodles for school lunches (they are a favourite of Beetle) ...

And when we lived on the West Coast fishing vessels were ALWAYS loaded with a the ubiquitous little plastic bags of instant noodles as well as the styrofoam cups of noodles too ... In fact I remember one of the insults lobbed from one fisherman to another was - "the only thing you know how to cook is Ichiban Noodles, and you even screw that up !!" (Insulting a North West Coast fisherman's cooking is a serious thing - they take their culinary skills seriously)

And on our flight home from Toronto, Beetle was thrilled to see that Westjet offered "Cup of Noodles" on their menu card ... It was what she chose ...

So, if you're like me - you've never heard of Momofuku Ando, but his invention of Instant Noodles in 1948, and the founding of his company NISSIN FOODS has touched your life in some way, even if only incidentally.

Today at the age of 96, Mr Ando passed away, and with him the legacy of a wide variety of instant foods that have fed children, university students, and fisherman the world over ... The whole concept of Instant noodles was apparently borne from the hunger that set in in Japan following World War Two, that caused Mr Ando to say - "I think I can do something about that ..."

The result was a product that you need only add boiling water to - and voila: lunch, dinner, or just a warm comforting snack.

It may not be the most nutritious food around, but is DOES taste pretty good. And it was all the result of one man who got a good idea ...

Kind of gives you hope for this old world doesn't it ...

Thanks Mr Ando - and rest in peace ...