The Taiwanese noodle firm A-Sha makes 5 totally different shapes of dried noodles. For some time, its skinny Tainan noodles have been the preferred, largely as a result of they have been the corporate’s first product to be stocked at Costco. However for concerning the previous three years, it’s been all concerning the knife-cut noodles, that are flat, extra-wide, and frilly-edged. Extra particularly although, they’re “squiggly.” Isn’t that enjoyable to say?
Although A-Sha formally sells them as “knife-cut” noodles, it wasn’t till customers began calling the noodles “squiggly” — a phrase that doesn’t seem on the product itself — that they actually took off for the corporate, explains CEO Younger Chang, who notes that they’re often known as Guanmiao noodles. “Someplace alongside the road, any person got here to me and was like, ‘Hey, I need that squiggly noodle,’” Chang says.
If “knife-cut” is ambiguous, “squiggly” is particular. “Everybody understands what ‘squiggly’ means,” Chang says. Plus, he provides, it’s type of cute: Even a two-year-old would get it. “We simply jumped throughout it and began saying squiggly on a regular basis,” he says.
As this particular noodle form beneficial properties traction in america, it’s not simply A-Sha saying “squiggly” on a regular basis. At Dealer Joe’s, the “squiggly knife cut-style” noodles have been common ever since they launched in 2023 and located viral success on TikTok. (They even spurred a resale market.) Fly By Jing payments its new noodles of the identical form, launched in October, as “bouncy, squiggly, and completely saucy.” On Google, search curiosity for the time period “squiggly noodles” has gone from almost negligible to on-the-rise starting in 2022 to an all-time excessive final month. (“Squiggly” isn’t restricted to Asian noodles, after all: Dan Pashman’s viral cascatelli, launched in 2021, has additionally been described the identical method.)
Although packaged noodles have lengthy been synonymous with Justin Timberlake-esque curls of instantaneous ramen, over the previous few years, the dried noodle business within the U.S. has been broadening in favor of what the author Cathy Erway has described as “a refreshingly refined — however no much less handy — expertise.” The “squiggly” noodle is probably the clearest image of this latest instantaneous noodle evolution.
Even when not the particular squiggly, knife-cut form, different latest noodle launches — like those from Omsom and Momofuku, the latter of which is made in collaboration with A-Sha — have leaned in favor of wider, flatter noodles. In line with Chang, A-Sha has differentiated itself within the noodle market largely by providing a wide range of widths and cuts, whereas different manufacturers are identified for only one.
There are some practical causes behind the rise of the vast, squiggly noodle. When envisioning Fly By Jing’s model, founder Jing Gao knew that the noodles needed to be a knife-cut type common in Sichuan. And since they’re meant to indicate off the model’s flagship sauces, the noodles couldn’t go away a puddle of sauce behind within the bowl. “This form specifically may be very onerous to seek out in America, and I discover it holds the right quantity of chile crisp,” Gao says.
On the spot ramen noodles, as invented by Momofuku Ando in 1958, are lower, steamed, and dehydrated by frying. By comparability, A-Sha and Fly By Jing’s noodles are air- and sun-dried, respectively. As a result of warmth doesn’t contact A-Sha’s noodles till the patron drops them in a pot of water, they preserve lots of their bounce and chew, Chang explains. This ends in a texture that’s extra like contemporary noodles from a restaurant than instantaneous ramen. Plus, decrease in oil, these noodles are extra interesting to health-conscious customers, Chang says.
As packaged noodles have develop into extra premium, so have their costs. A bundle of Maruchan nonetheless rings in at round 50 cents, however a single serving of the Fly By Jing noodles is almost $6 and one in all A-Sha’s is about $3.75. When it got here to discovering a producer in Sichuan, the most important problem was “discovering scale to get to a value that People are used to paying for at house noodles,” Gao says. The corporate is now working with its companions to determine maintain its high quality whereas attending to a cheaper price level, she provides. Dealer Joe’s, although extra inexpensive, continues to be about double the worth of High Ramen.
These noodles are usually imported. Fly By Jing’s are made immediately in Sichuan, whereas A-Sha’s noodles are all made in Taiwan, as they’ve been since 1977. In 2015, Chang and his enterprise accomplice Henry Liao took over the corporate, which was going through monetary challenges, and set the purpose of constructing A-Sha a world model and selling Taiwanese tradition all over the world. A part of this, Chang says, included upgrading the corporate’s manufacturing to fulfill the meals security necessities of shops like Costco and Goal.
Regardless of hypothesis that the Dealer Joe’s squiggly noodles are made by A-Sha, Chang wasn’t in a position to converse to that time immediately. However whereas some small manufacturers have a contentious relationship with the grocery chain’s strategy to dupes, Chang sees the chain’s rebranding in a extra constructive mild. It may be difficult for an unfamiliar model to persuade buyers to attempt a brand new meals, he explains, however Dealer Joe’s already has a captive viewers. “After they’re selling one thing just like the squiggly noodle, it actually, actually lifts your entire business,” he says.
Whether or not it’s kimbap, ube, or chakri, it says one thing when a meals makes it onto the cabinets of Dealer Joe’s, with its beloved however additionally notorious private-label variations: It’s an indication that the meals entered the cultural panorama sufficient to warrant a generic take. It’s been translated, not simply by way of viewers but in addition generally actually, just like the adoption of the “squiggly knife cut-style” title.
There’s historical past that will get misplaced when cultural meals tackle new names largely for the sake of latest audiences. Chang likens the trajectory of the noodles to what occurs extra broadly inside immigrant communities: The second and third generations would possibly lose some features of their tradition, like language, as a part of assimilating to a brand new setting. “It’s type of like survival,” Chang says, noting that calling the noodles “squiggly” helps the product and the corporate succeed by assembly clients the place they’re and catering to what they need.
To Chang, Dealer Joe’s adoption of the “squiggly” noodle was a “sensible” advertising and marketing alternative. Ten years in the past, he by no means would have predicted that the knife-cut noodles can be the one to interrupt by means of. However, he says, “Of all of the names that we’ve tried on that product, that’s the one which hits.”
