The Never-Ending Noodle

Washington, D.C. — To understand my tendency to tangents and the strange trails my thought processes undertake, you have to know why I eat noodles on my birthday.

“On New Year’s Day, I received in a text message of well-wishes a reminder: ‘Eat noodles.’”
Illustration by Matthew T. Marco.

It was one of a litany of Chinese superstitions that threaded the fabric of my ostensibly Roman Catholic Filipino-American upbringing, to eat noodles on my birthday and those of loved ones, and so I punctuated these celebrations with various preparations of pancit though more with often whatever edible noodles were available at the time–a plate of spaghetti rigati tossed in olive oil and salt has become my recent observance of this tradition.

On New Year’s Day, I received in a text message of well-wishes a reminder: “Eat noodles.”

I was confused–whose birthday was it? It was only from this perfunctory communication that I learned the superstition applied to New Year’s Day as well (the Chinese primarily, though the Gregorian is given the same due), and my parents explained this very broadly as an observation for longevity and hinted at the existence of a more elaborate set of rites of a common origin and similar purpose–rites of polka-dotted outfits, coins left in pockets, open windows and doors, and abstinence from brooms, knives, and hair grooming were de rigeur protocol among true believers for these annual celebrations. And I came to realize that as much as the packaged Italian pasta I’d consumed as a symbolic gesture bears a resemblance to the homemade ‘longevity noodles,’ folded and stretched from a lump of dough to a single noodle equal in length to the height of the room where they are stored dangling from the ceiling, that are the proper material for the tradition, so is the distance between my personal observation of the superstition and the practices that orthodox Chinese have made annual routines.

Legend has it that Marco Polo introduced the slippery starch of noodles to Europe from China, and international trade across the South China Sea resulted in cultural transactions of rituals above and beyond goods and services, and there is a recorded historical correlation between the expansion of the Spanish empire in the 17th century and the spread of Catholicism. The staple status of pancit in Philippine cuisine before Magellan’s fatal encounter with the islands and the Chinese origin of noodles in this instance is a plausible explanation of the coexistence of ritual and religion for centuries.

Although Marco Polo’s momentous delivery provides entertaining theatre, noodles were making their way to Italy on Genoese ships more than a decade before he returned on the Silk Road, and the pasta that evolved in Italy followed its immigrants to the United States (the country where, notably, chop suey was invented). Unlike the local produce that inspires erstwhile longings for the ‘old country,’ noodles are a portable and versatile recipe for all cultures. It is a format with universal appeal. Buckwheat yakisoba, rice vermicelli, durum wheat semolina spaghetti–each is an independent, locally adapted contribution to the global phenomenon of the noodle. Local rituals and superstitions may prevail, but in its most basic form—a narrow, ribbonlike strip of dried dough, usually made of grain, eggs, and water—the noodle is a kind of postmodern culinary esperanto, an infinitely translatable, reconstitutable dish. Love or hate fusion cooking, it’s bound to utilize some form of noodle.

Consider then: why does pinoy spaghetti taste the way it tastes?

Wikipedia tells of ten varieties of pancit (though I’m only acquainted with four, and sotanghon is my personal favorite)–a broad term that covers a wide range of noodles and ingredients. Nevertheless, each variety’s ingredients are usually the harvest of its geography, though the origins of the dish are ultimately foreign. If one considers spaghetti through the same prism, the recipe that has become familiar at family gatherings and served by most Philippine fast-food establishments (including local versions of American chains), the composition of glutenated noodles, low-viscosity tomato-based sauce colored fluorescent red, slices of local hot dog that are (improbably) even more fluorescently red (the uninitiated are allowed to question the edibility of anything with a color that does not occur in plastics, let alone nature), ground beef/pork/meat, shredded American cheddar cheese, and more than likely, a haphazard assortment of artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, and probably monosodium glutamate. The concoction is improbably sweet, and for a taste that westerners now find shocking, it leaves a lingering aftertaste of American military ingenuity. I suppose I should be thankful that it was never conveniently available for the late-night snacking of my undergraduate years.

Leave it to American infantry in the 1940s to devise a new Philippine culinary staple, but Max’s Fried Chicken, a local sit-down restaurant chain, boasts this origin, even on menus in their American locations. Much like pancit was developed in coordination with Chinese merchants, Philippine spaghetti is the consequence of international relations with Americans, who appropriated it from the wave of Italians who emigrated to the United States in the late 19th century. Legend has it that Marco Polo introduced the slippery starch of noodles to Europe from China, and linked by the Silk Road and Mulberry Street from the Pacific Ocean on the East and the South China Sea trade on the west, the history of noodles in the Philippines can be mapped on an ellipse over the Eurasian continent and two oceans.

Follow it through itself, and it will never end.

Local rituals and superstitions may prevail, but in its most basic form—a narrow, ribbonlike strip of dried dough, usually made of grain, eggs, and water—the noodle is a kind of postmodern culinary esperanto, an infinitely translatable, reconstitutable dish. Love or hate fusion cooking, it’s bound to utilize some form of noodle.

My pale imitation of noodle rites seems then just as much a local adaptation of a global phenomenon, but the distinctive challenge remains: that one should not break or consume the noodles they consume on these occasions, as any breakage threatens the longevity one for which one is apparently consuming noodles in the first place. Given this context, every noodle I consume, even those in a simple bowl of spaghetti tossed in salt and olive oil, is subject to this ritual.

Consider: in the institutional memory that guides my Filipino-American Roman Catholic upbringing, every noodle is connected. As there are more neurons in a human brain than stars in the sky, in every noodle is a history, a record of places visited and lived, a nostalgia for the strange spaghetti of childhood. At the start of this journey to connect every noodle, these memoirs and histories, the rites of commemoration merely demand that in order to avoid bad luck, I don’t break any of them. ■