Term · Japanese culture
Udon
Thick, soft, pale wheat noodles, the least fussy thing on any Japanese menu.
In Otakana the clue reads: Thick white wheat noodles in broth
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- Japanese culture
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- 4 · Normal
Flour, water and salt, kneaded hard and rested, then cut thick. The dough is worked so much that the traditional method has the maker stand on it wrapped in cloth, which sounds like a joke until you feel the resistance. The result is chewy and mild, and the noodle takes the character of whatever broth it is sitting in rather than fighting it.
Kagawa on Shikoku treats the dish as an identity. The prefecture markets itself as Udon Prefecture, eats several times the national average, and runs self-service shops where you carry your own bowl along a counter, add broth from a tap and pick your own tempura from a tray. Prices there stay low enough that the whole thing feels like a canteen with a cult following.
The standard bowls are simple. Kake is broth and nothing else, tempura udon adds fried prawn, and kitsune udon comes with a sheet of sweet fried tofu that folklore says the fox likes. In summer the noodles are served chilled with dipping sauce. As comfort food for a sick or broke character it does the same work rice porridge does elsewhere.
Spelling UDON
UDON begins with a vowel, which is unusual and useful, since a U in the first position rules out most of the field at once. Four letters, no long vowel, nothing doubled. The vowels are U and O, and the word ends in N, one of the few consonants Japanese allows at the end of a syllable. Spell it as it sounds.