流しそうめん
First a little "nagashi somen" flowing noodles history.
Just kidding! I haven't the foggiest where or how it all began. I can say that, if you don't want to go to all the trouble of setting it up like I did and you're willing to throw down anywhere between 1,600 to 25,000 yen ($15 to $250) and are able to navigate a Japanese online shopping website then you can order your own nagashi somen contraption. Most of the noodle doohickeys I saw are genuine plastic, battery operated, almost certainly guaranteed to break in seven uses or less. This is just one example of the seeming countless kinds and designs available.
Or if you opt for doing it like I did (i.e. the old fashioned way from scratch) I've put together a step by step guide as to how you'd go about doing just that. Being the nice guy that I am I've included pictures for any who have an aversion to seeing various arrangements of the twenty six letters of the alphabet mixed in with some punctuation marks.
Step 1
Ask your neighbor if you can harvest a bamboo stalk from the nearby mountain that his family owns; the one that's filled with lots and lots of bamboo. (If no such neighbor exists then just go find a grove of bamboo and take your chances at cutting one down. As long as it's not on a nice temple grounds, tourist attraction, near the Emperor's Palace, etc., the locals here will likely just say "Ah it's another one of them crazy gaijin cutting bamboo" and leave you be.)
Step 2
Go to said mountain, find bamboo stalk suitable for flowing noodles, cut a long chunk of it and transport it home in/on a certified bamboo transportation vehicle. (e.g. My trusty mountain bike. Who's up for a little jousting?)
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| Bamboo stalk & bamboo transportation vehicle in the background |
Don't listen to your wife who says the proper Japanese way to split the bamboo is with a "nata" (like a Japanese ax). You're an American dang it! Americans use power tools! Since you picked out a nice straight piece just get your younger boy child help you snap a line with your old chalkline, fire up the 7 1/4" worm drive saw and let'r rip! Cut that sucker right down the middle on one side and then split it with the nata because everyone knows it'll be easier to split a piece that long if one side's already cut.
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| Nata and rubber mallet. The optimal bamboo splitting tool team! |
Admit that your wife was right upon realizing you're the only person who knew cutting one side down the center first would be better. Admit that that kind of knowing resulted in a bamboo splitting fail of epic proportions. Admit all of this while saying "Good gosh what's all this stuff in the middle of the bamboo? Holy cow look't that thing OMG that's a freak'n grub. Holy shmoley there's a whole gaggle of em! Quick boys give those things to the goldfish! (Goldfish in tank in the yard were extremely pleased with step 3b).
Step 4
After much deliberation; after scratching your head trying to figure out how to use this poorly split piece of bamboo that's been eaten to smithereens by an army of white grubs of some sort; after consulting wife; etc., return the total fail poorly split grub infested bamboo to bamboo slash pile on nearby mountain and choose far more carefully before cutting and bringing home another piece!
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| Note the grub in the center of this shot. That's the same that the first total fail choice of bamboo was chuck full of. Take great care to check the rings and look for discoloration or small holes in bamboo stalk before selecting and cutting and bringing it home. It's worth the time to check very carefully, I can assure you! |
Step 5
After taking great care in the bamboo selection process, cutting it down, dragging it to a good place in the bamboo grove (an area with plenty of room to shoo away mosquitoes while cutting it down to the desired length) loading it up and pushing the new and improved more wisely selected bamboo stalk home on your bamboo transportation vehicle (still my mountain bike, only no jousting second piece was way too danged big and heavy just set it on seat and across handlebars and push home slowly as neighbors look on in curious amusement) after doing that split it the way your wife told you already!
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| post cutting of second piece in the bamboo grove on the neighbor's mountain |
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| Splitting second piece the way Japanese wife recommends |
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| Second piece split this is Step 6: hollowing out the bamboo so noodles will flow freely. |
Step 6
Use a framing hammer, the nata, a rasp, and any other tool or thing that can be used as a tool that you think will work well to knock out the rings in the middle of the bamboo.
Step 7
Experiment with various objects readily available in the yard as you try to set up the two lengths of halved bamboo to create one long chute angled enough to allow water and noodles to flow down it. As you can see I ended up going with the little girl's homemade swing set, the "I knew would find another use for that thing!" old homemade step we used when toilet training the young'ns, and a few short lengths of 4x4 posts. After doing this be sure to secure the pieces so they don't come apart or fall down once surrounded by scores of chopsticks wielding famished little children folk; use wires to secure a hose to the high end of the chute and set up a large bowl with a smaller strainer bowl inside of it at the far end (the latter will allow you to easily transport uncaught noodles from low to high end for a second, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc., run down the chute)
Step 8
Nagashi somen flowing noodles stage one: Family and extended family edition with soon to return to chef job in Australia wife's cousin manning the BBQ (flowing noodles goes great with BBQ!)
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| father-in-law feeding noodles into trough and wife's ever so cool chef cousin manning BBQ in background |
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| All kids take turns feeding noodles into the chute |
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| Flowing noodle family selfie :) |
Step 9
Flowing noodles blueberries and jelly beans night edition with Aussie neighbor & family and his visiting kinfolk from Australia.
Step 10
Day 2: Flowing Noodles take 3: Wife's childhood friends and a bunch of our neighbors edition. Family with kids up the street, two, no make that three neighborhood obachans (older ladies) one of whom was big on BYON (bring your own noodles) I invited the neighbor who gifted us the bamboo as well. I don't know what everyone thought years ago upon learning that a gaijin (foreigner) was moving into the hood but I think it safe to say they're all cool with it now. It was just a nice lovely fun time all around, kids running amuck catching and munching down noodles and trying to catch tomatoes and grapes and jellybeans, moms and grandmas a smile'n and neighbors jabbering away.
So I'm happy to say that what started as a total fail ended in learning how to do this flowing noodle action and then some--how to set it up from scratch and end up having a jolly ol time. One length of chute has since been cut down and turned into siding on the bike shelter I moved to the end of the shed but we might just hang on to the other length for a while in case the urge hits to do it again anytime soon. So if ya ever get to craving flowing noodles then do it yourself, order online, or if in these parts stop on by for some top notch flowing noodle action with us!
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