Banned in Denmark!

I know very little about Denmark. If I were to be asked to describe the people of the country, I think I might choose words like cosmopolitan, educated and permissive for my answer. So an article that Jeanne came across a couple weeks ago surprised us.  It seems that Denmark has recently banned a certain noodle. The reason given for pulling Buldak Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen out of stores was that it was a health risk. That surprised us.  

The 'permissive' part of my answer above lead me to believe that the government would not get involved with something so personal as someone's choice of food. So wow!  Those must be some spicey noodles. But to ban them?  Just how spicey could they possibly be?  

Hmm. Well, you know me. Or some of you do anyway.  I headed off to our favorite Korean market and checked the shelves. Yup, there it was.  I opted for a single pack of ramen, just to play it safe. I could always come back and get the economy pack if it turned out that we liked them a lot. I fully expected to. I like hot foods. 

We tried them today for lunch.  

Notice that the up at the top the packaging says it 2 X spicey. 

After cooking the noodles, Jeanne added the first packet of gel-like spice.  

Then, after stirring, she added the second packet of dry spice.  

I think that the labeling means that there are two kinds of spice added to the noodles.  

In my opinion however, after tasting them, I think that 2 X spicey actually means 

    Too (eXpletive) spicey

These noodles were something else.  Definitely the hottest thing I've ever purchased off any shelf.  I sipped some of the soup with a spoon, which tasted good, and then ate three mouthfuls of noodles before it hit me.  About this time, Jeanne, who was across the room with her own bowlful, was shaking her head regretfully and saying, "Nope, not for me, I'm not eating any more of this."

Always a scientist at heart, I didn't want to end my own experimentation without further testing. I rinsed my portion of noodles in two changes of water and tried again.  By this time, my mouth was back to close to normal and the noodles were cooler besides.  It took four additional forkfuls to convince me that further research was ill advised.  The noodles had clearly absorbed enough of spice packets one and two and I was not up to withstanding their effects. 

A week or so after Jeanne shared the 'ban the noodles' article with me, we saw a follow up piece that said that the ban had been lifted.  That upon further review, the legislators had decided the noodles were not actually dangerous. Just hot, really hot, really, really hot. If any of their citizens wanted to subject themselves to such an experience, they were once again welcome to do so.  

We said, "Good for the Danes."  We applaud their bravery. 

Personally, I think that after seeing sales of Buldak noodles soar as the ban is lifted and the residents flock to the stores to try them like I did, sales will plummet, as they try them like I did.  

Or, maybe the Danes are a lot tougher than I am. Who am I to say?  Maybe Denmark has a large Korean population which will continue to make 2 X spicey ramens profitable to keep on the shelves of markets. After all the effort Jeanne and I put into this issue, I'm hoping to see a final article that will address the matter.   

In the meantime, I have decided not to go back and purchase the twelve-pack of  2 X noodles. 

-djf  

Paul Harvey was a radio personality when I was much younger. He had a show that he called, The Rest of the Story. In it, he gave the news behind the news that you'd hear on mainstream TV or radio.  

The rest of the story on these noodles is that Jeanne had also added a package of Udon noodles to the ramen so we had about twice as many noodles as the packages of spices were measured for. We were eating in effect, a diluted product. Yipes.  

And now, the real rest of the story.  I just looked up the Scoville units for this product, expecting it to be half a million at least.  I found it was 10,000.  I must be getting soft. What a wimp.