History of mushroom shiitake

Shiitake is a Japanese name deriving from take, mushroom and shii, a kind of chestnut tree that the mushroom was commonly found growing on in Japan.

Lentinula edodes best known by its Japanese name, shiitake, is the leading specialty mushroom in North America.

In China where it was originated, it is referred to as xiang-gu, the mushroom with great aroma. Mushrooms have been working their herbal magic for over 3,000 years in traditional oriental medicine.

Ancient people, shamans, and healers already knew the secret powers of this mushroom and it was seen as the symbol of long life.

Credit was given to Wu Sang Kwuang in Zhejiang Province in China as the ingenious observer who figured out how to cultivate shiitake during the Sung Dynasty in 1100 AD.

It was introduced to Japan about 500 hundred years later. It is recorded that members of Japanese courts regarded shiitake as an aphrodisiac and defended the growing sites by keeping them hidden and well-guarded.

From 1892 in, the cultivation methods on wood logs were consistently improved and further developed by Japanese scientists.

Dr. Shozaburo Minura in Japan was the one to develop the scientific method of inoculating natural logs with pure culture of shiitake mycelia in 1914.

In 1946, the mushroom industry in Japan experienced a great thrust forward due to the invention of Tanegoma spawn.
History of mushroom shiitake

History of Ramen

Ramen is a Japanese food serve in broth. It served in a meat-based broth, and uses toppings such as sliced pork, seaweed, green onion and sometimes corn.

According to historian, noodles originated from China over 4000 years ago and reached the Japanese culture much later on. In fact, we had to wait up to 19th century, in the Meiji period, for ramen to become widely known in Japan. Salt ramen originated in Hokkaido in the Taisho era. The Japanese dish was originally called “Lamen”, but will be later referred to as “Ramen”, since there is no distinction between the 'L' and 'R' sounds in the Japanese language and it was a more popular way to express the word.

After the Second World War came an intense food shortage in Japan, a turning point in the history of noodles. Ramen were perfect and greatly helped Japan, they were cheap and a great source of needed calories. This due to cheap flour imported from United States. A bit later, in 1958, Momofuku Ando, founder and chairman of Nissin Foods, invented the instant noodles, which are a lot closer to what the people eat today. It named the greatest “made in Japan” invention of the 20th century. In 1970, Nissin Foods introduced the ramen to the United States. In 1972, ramen was produced in United States. 4000 years after the origin of the first noodles, ramen are known worldwide and are part of over 85 billions meals every year. Today, ramen are everywhere in Japan and across the world, and each province has it unique flavor and closely-guarded secret ingredient.