Saturday, June 02, 2007

Nagashi Somen (A River of Noodles)

Koji's preschool knows how to host a party! On his last day of school, we all went out on the lawn for a lunch of nagashi somen. Somen is a type of noodle, a little thinner than ramen, if anyone is particular about noodle thicknesses. It's often eaten during the summer, cold, and after being dunked in a bit of cold broth (which probably sounds unappetizing but actually is quite refreshing and delicious). However, as you see below, we didn't just sit around dunking noodles: we had to catch them first!
Adults took turns sending the noodles down the water-filled half-pipe.

The kids waited next to the pipe with their chopsticks and cups of broth at the ready.

The adults' other job was to monitor the noodle level in the kids' cups and occasionally say, "Stop catching the noodles and eat a few!" Obviously, catching them was way more fun!


Fortunately, Izumi wasn't tall enough to get next to the pipe. She had just as much fun to trying to "catch" the noodles that missed her mouth when I scooped them in.


When everyone had eaten their fill, some noodles were left but I hadn't eaten yet, so I said, "hey, give me a turn!". Now I'm wondering if I should rent this contraption for our next backyard party?!

3 comments:

Ricardo said...

This looks like it was a blast. I bet adults would enjoy it just as much - even trying other kinds of food! Yeah... party at your house!

JulieAnn said...

That looks like so much fun :) I think they might call it saimin here, and that stuff is good!!

Unknown said...

Wow, that's so cool! I've never seen that before! I'm making a cold somen salad for Ally's preschool graduation. Unfortunately no pipe though! ;)