I just returned home from Japan yesterday.

While I was there, I ate plenty of resturaunt ramen noodles. Oh, man the real thing is so much better than the dried stuff we get in the States. God bless America and all that, but the Japanese really have the noodle soup thing figured out.

Naturally, anybody accustomed to a real bowl of hand pounded ramen noodles couldn't stand for a bowl of reconstituted dried ramen from the package. Instead, you can get packages of instant raw noodles at the grocery store. I bought 35 packages of these and brought them home to the States. "Where are the Mikimoto pearls?!" my wife asked when I got to the bottom of the suitcase...

Anyway, I remember being on a ski bus and seeing a couple of teenagers eating packages of uncooked ramen noodles right out of the wrapper. They sprinkled the powdered soup-base right on the dried noodles and ate it like some kind of space-age biscuit.

Is this a new trend in sports foods, or were these kids just naive Russian refugees?

Anybody have the latest scoop on ramen noodles? Are they the sports fuel of today's trendsetters? Any suggested recipes? Go raw or naw?