Happy 105th Birthday To The Man Who Invented Ramen!

Do you remember cups of instant noodles seasoned with flavoring packets fondly? Like Easy Mac, Cup Noodles is an instant comfort food. We have Momofuku Ando to thank for that, the Taiwanese inventor of instant ramen, and today would have been his 105th birthday (yes, in case you were wondering, David Chang's restaurants are a nod to his ramen). Google is celebrating Ando with a whimsical Google doodle showing the king of ramen inspecting some noodles under a microscope.

Remember Ando today by heating up one of the top instant noodles of all time, according to a Daily Meal ranked list.

Momofuku Ando, who lived to the ripe old age of 97, invented the beloved noodles as a method of ending world hunger after his saw the devastation of his country post-World War II, according to an explainer in Gizmodo. He wanted to invent something that would be cheap and efficient, durable, and cook quickly. Thus, instant ramen was born. According to Vox, much of Ando's story doesn't quite add up, and he did go to jail for tax evasion in 1948. But all things considered, he was a pretty important figure in food history. As a loose translation of his biography states, "mankind is noodlekind."