Yes, let's definitely make ramen: an interview with illustrator and food nerd Sarah Becan
Also: Lumpia Shanghai, revisiting Francois Mitterand's last meal (yes, we're talking about the Ortolan), and answers to chicken questions from Bon Appetit.
Folks: have we talked about how sauceome Sarah Becan is?
As a professional illustrator, her passion for food comes through in her own comics, as well as the projects she’s undertaken for numerous restaurants in Chicago, including the Logan Square stunner Fat Rice. After contributing illustrations to The Adventures of Fat Rice cookbook (produced by Fat Rice owners Abe Conlon, Adrienne Lo, and future collaborator Hugh Amano), Hugh and Sarah got together to create Let’s Make Ramen!, a 100% comic book cookbook all about the noodle soup that everyone — especially your friend’s brother who went to Tokyo that one time — is obsessed with.
I got Sarah to sit down for a chat about ramen, her illustration process, and how she came to make deliciousness the focus of much of her work.
(Also: before we start — and for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the terms under which the following interview was conducted, I’d like to make the following statement:
Sarah Becan has never ever cheated at Mariokart and every time she has beaten me in a race it’s because of her own skill and tenacity.*
Okay. Now we can begin.)
THE83K: What was something you and Hugh uncovered during research for Let’s Make Ramen! that really surprised you?
SB: The first thing that comes to mind is how NEW ramen is. I didn't really know much of the history of ramen as a dish before we went into the project. Japan has such a long and storied history, and so many of their culinary traditions are literally thousands of years old, and I think I assumed ramen was essentially the same.
THE83K: That nugget in your book surprised me, too. It's only 100-ish years old, right?
SB: Yes — it really only got started post-World War II, with an influx of wheat and shortages of rice. That feels incredibly new, at least by Japanese culinary standards.
THE83K: Especially given how noodle traditions in Asia feel like they go back eons.
SB: Right! And, I mean, if you consider that ramen is directly descended from China's lamian noodle, technically the tradition does go back eons.
But like so many things, once lamian/ramen arrived in Japan, it became its own thing.
THE83K: You guys talk about so many different styles of ramen in your beautiful book — what's your personal favorite style of Ramen? And what style do you recommend trying to the first-time ramen cook?
SB: My favorite used to be any kind of tonkotsu, but my tastes have definitely evolved, and I think miso is my favorite now! I love the umami bomb you can get from miso without necessarily needing the liquefied pig stock that tonkotsu provides. But making the book has given me a super new appreciation for all the ramen styles. I didn't used to like shio at all, but it's absolutely grown on me.
In terms of trying things at home, most of the standard ramen recipes involve at least a few days' prep ahead of time. I don't think I'd recommend starting with the tonkotsu! But you can easily start by spending a weekend making a good chicken or pork broth, and mixing up your favorite tare, and you've got the materials to have a good ramen night that week. But there are also a few recipes in there that are great for instant gratification, and I like recommending them as a good place to start. I threw together the Hot and Cold Tomato Mazemen recipe just the other night. It came together in less than an hour, and it was perfect for late summer and an abundance of tomatoes.
THE83K: Everything in this book looks stupidly delicious. I'll be honest: when I heard about this project, I was worried about the recipes not reflecting the reality of the ingredients or finished ramen – but seeing the finished product, I'm realizing the opposite is true; that you've managed to capture “idealized” versions of the food you're describing. It's really quite lovely. Any particular item/page you found particularly satisfying to illustrate?
SB: The spread introducing Abura Soba (below) was super satisfying for me to draw, because there are three stages of this super unctuous eggy oily noodle dish, and everything was pretty and shiny. I was also so pleased with one spread in the “Master Ramen Bowl” section (above), with the exploded ramen bowl and the instructions flanking it on both sides. It kind of encapsulated everything we wanted to do with the book — to demystify ramen, to make it super approachable and accessible, but also to make it really attractive and delicious.
And I think you've really hit on something at the core of our process too. If we wanted to have the book represent realistic ramen, we could easily have done it with photography. But illustration and comics have different strengths.
Comics and illustration aren't just decoration, it's a visual language. With a drawing, you can eliminate unnecessary details, and focus on emphasizing the most important parts, to communicate the steps of a recipe really efficiently. Sometimes that means emphasizing the gloriously oily noodles and gooey egg yolk, but sometimes that's demonstrating very simply how the texture of homemade noodle dough changes with successive runs through a pasta roller, and sometimes that's showing the sequences of how to layer ingredients in a bowl.
THE83K: A lot of the work you've done in the past is food-related, or at least tangentially so. One of my favorites of yours is the cuts of meat on the Pokemon. What's drawn you to make so much of your work related to what's clearly a passion for you?
SB: My interest in working with food as a subject came really gradually to me! I was a super picky eater as a kid, and generally uninterested in cooking or food history, but I was really only exposed to very limited Midwestern suburbanite culinary options at the time. As I became a more adventurous eater, and was able to expand my palate and learn more about different culinary traditions, I got more and more interested in writing about the things I was learning.
I was realizing that food could be so much more than just the calories you needed to get through the day. I was raised on a lot of white bread, overcooked burgers, unseasoned rice, and vegetables steamed within an inch of their lives, and I was learning that a meal could be an explosion of creativity and care and experimentation. That a flavor profile could contain just as much art and self-expression as any painting. It feels silly to think about how much of a revelation this was to me! But maybe the fact that I came to it later in life has something to do with how passionately I write about and draw food now.
I think most of this started with my webcomic, which I called “I Think You're Sauceome”. It was autobiographical, and I was updating it almost every day, so I was usually writing about whatever was on my mind that day. Over time I realized how often "whatever was on my mind" involved food — things like new recipes I was learning, ingredients I was learning to work with, articles I was reading about things like, how old tamales are, or legends about how the bao was invented. I also often drew a comic about when my boyfriend and I would try a new restaurant, and that started to get me commercial illustration and comics work.
THE83K: If you could draw a tribute to a food you love or feel like hasn't received enough respect, which would it be?
SB: Okay, I don't have anywhere near the education, skills, or research background that I would need for this project, but I would LOVE to someday do a really deep dive into the taco. I've always been fascinated at how your typical taqueria taco is so different in different places — the typical street taco that you get in, say, southern California, is so different from what you find along the border in Texas, which is so different from what you find in New York, which is different from what you find in Chicago. My dream is to somehow partner with someone who's an expert on the history and demographics of different immigrant populations from Mexico across the US, and to see if you can draw connections from the states that people came from — and the culinary traditions in those regions — to the types of taco recipes that you'll find in different regions of the US. Honestly, I don't even need to be the person who draws this project — I'd just love to see it happen; a thorough investigation of different taqueria traditions and their storied history.
THE83K: So what’s next for you? Are you and Hugh working on something new?
SB: Hugh and I worked so well together during Let's Make Ramen! It was a super easy collaboration and we're really excited to do something similar. We're absolutely planning on doing another comic book cook book together, although I don't think we're allowed to announce anything specific just yet.
THE83K: That’s stupidly exciting news. Okay — one last question: what's the most delicious thing you've been thinking about lately?
SB: Ok, this is a heartbreaker, because the place in question is now closed. I used to occasionally go to a Mexican restaurant way up on the 6000-ish block of North Clark, they had delicious shrimp tacos and guacamole. One time we were there, and they had “Pulpo de Ajo” on special. I like octopus, so I ordered it. It was a giant plate piled high with baby octopus, slow cooked in ink and ridiculous amounts of garlic, and each bite just melted in my mouth. This was years ago, but every few months I remember it, and I get so sad that I'll never get to eat that again.
You can find Sarah’s portfolio here, you can buy her printed work here, her shirts and stuff here, and follow her on social media here and here.
Also: if you’re interested, you can read three comics Sarah wrote about her boyfriend entering a macaroni and cheese competition I used to run.
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Things you should make:
XO Sauce: “Even when you don't have the will to cook for yourself, a spoonful of the right condiment can elevate a frozen pizza, or a mediocre takeout order. And there were definitely desperate times when I would eat straight out of a jar, when I couldn't trick my fridge into restocking itself no matter how many times I opened it to check. These days, my fridge may not be as Up In The Air depressing and bare as it once was, but condiments still take up most of the prime real estate.
Along with the usual suspects of Heinz ketchup (the one true ketchup), mayonnaise, miso, and five types of mustard, I keep my fridge stocked with harissa, store-bought chili crisp (I still haven't gotten around to making Sohla's amazing homemade stuff), Calabrian chilies, gochujang and doenjang, and one of my Mount Rushmore picks, XO sauce.”
Lumpia Shanghai: “My mother-in-law’s best friend is a Filipino woman whose favorite thing was to host elaborate feasts, which would essentially shut down the neighborhood for a few hours as everyone would stop by.
I never got to attend one of these Filipino shindigs, but I did experience the next best thing. My mother-in-law was able to get the recipe for her friend’s Lumpia Shanghai, the Filipino take on egg rolls.”
Apple Cider Whoopie Pies: “Their name may be fun to say, but whoopie pies aren’t really pies at all but rather soft, cake-like cookie sandwiches. These are inspired by a classic apple cider doughnut and, true to form, are dusted with cinnamon sugar. Apple cider that's been reduced and a bit of apple butter work in tandem to subtly flavor the fluffy cakes, and good old cream cheese frosting makes the ideal filling. For beautiful, uniformly sized cakes, use a 2-tablespoon cookie scoop to portion the batter for baking. If you don't have one, they might bake up a little wonky, but they’ll still taste delightful.”
A dumb way to make deep dish at home that is actually fine: Warning: as mentioned in a previous newsletter, Dennis Lee is as brilliant as he is gross. There are bad words and a fun, dumb and tasty looking pizza recipe in this story. You’ve been warned.
Things you should read:
A Tennessee man sued Popeyes because he can’t get his hands on one of those damn sandwiches. Not gonna lie: I kinda get it. (Thanks, Rachel!)
SUPERMARKET SWEEP IS BACK AND LESLIE MOTHERFORKING JONES IS HOSTING (Thanks, Natalie!)
If you haven’t heard the story already, this Esquire longread about the last meal of the late French President Francois Mitterand is worth your lunch hour — if only to remind you that food can do so much. And only so much. Also: only the French could invent a way to eat an endangered songbird that feels simultaneously sacred and profane.
Rolling with The Produce Hunter:
As for peaches, she dismisses the red blush that may draw customers. The only color that matters, she said, is at the stem end, which should be yellow without a hint of green.
“Red exterior color was bred into peaches and nectarines,” she said, “because unripe fruit that’s red looks more attractive than unripe fruit that’s pale.”
Many people pinch fruit to gauge its ripeness, much to the horror of farmers. The standard five-fingertip squeeze bruises peaches, nectarines, apricots and avocados. Instead, Ms. Beverlin places a peach in her open palm, wraps her hand around it and barely flexes. If it gives just a bit, “firm, but not hard,” it’s ready.
The Great British Baking Show is BACK TODAY (FRIDAY,) and running episodes in the US only a few days after their UK premiere — a new episode every Friday for ten glorious weeks.
Things to watch or listen to:
DON’T WASH YOUR CHICKEN, and other stuff you should know about your favorite boid:
You can do better:
Those of you who know me know I’m a HUGE fan of the Gastropod podcast. This episode about Sharbat (progenitor of sorbet, sherbet, syrups, shrubs, and even the julep) is fascinating and will have you reaching for ingredients to make your own.
A word from Franklin:
That’s it for this edition of The83K newsletter. If you have any tips or suggestions for things you’d like to see here, please drop me a line at the83k@gmail.com.
*Also: Toadette sucks and the Cat Cruiser sucks and Sarah is a stupid fartface