If you look at the package carefully, and actually read the label, it says pasta salad. But if you only look at the contents of the package, which you can see quite clearly from the side, you see long thin noodles. Is it spaghetti, or is it ramen? Is there a difference?
I call spaghetti by its name, spaghetti. My wife, who is Japanese, calls it pasta. To me, pasta could mean any number of noodles, including ramen, udon, soba, or somen. To my wife, pasta is essentially a long, thin noodle of Italian origin and ramen is ramen, udon is udon, soba is soba, and somen is somen; and if you don’t know the difference, well … you’re either a fool or you’re new to Japan.
Should we even begin to delve into the mysteries of husband and wife communication, or should I say miscommunications? Let’s not and say we did.
Today I was reminded of an incident that took place about a year ago. I was at a convenience store, buying lunch for my family. I called my wife to tell her what was available: various kinds of rice balls and sandwiches, a variety of salads and premade lunches, and three kinds of what I referred to as ramen salads.
Ramen salad, she said, the one with the shrimp in it and the slightly spicy dressing.
No problem, I thought. And then I proceeded to buy the pasta salad that I ate today, the one shown in the photo above.
When I got home and unpacked everyone’s lunches, my said, Where’s the ramen salad?
What are you talking about? It’s right there, I answered.
That is not ramen, she said very sternly. Look at the noodles. They’re yellow. Don’t you even know what ramen noodles look like?
Of course, I did, but I had never really thought about it before that moment, and I had certainly never compared ramen noodles to spaghetti noodles before, and to top it all off, I had just assumed that all the noodle salads in the convenience store were ramen salads. I didn’t know that some were pasta salads, or that anybody even made pasta salad with spaghetti. Macaroni, shells, ziti, or penne, yes, of course, but spaghetti?
Who knew?
Which brings me to the title and the point of this post:
You don’t know until you know.
And now you know.
