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Andy Raskin found it difficult to summarize “The Ramen King and I: How the Inventor of Instant Noodles Fixed My Love Life” (Gotham Books, $26), so he asked his Facebook friends for aid. About 100, he says, helped hone the paragraph on the back of his book.
It explains that his memoir is about how Momofuku Ando, who invented instant noodles, became an “unlikely spiritual guide” in Raskin’s quest to confront his “pattern of infidelity and betrayal” in romantic relationships. Raskin, 44, punctuates his narrative with intimate letters addressed to Ando, who authored several inspirational books before his death in 2007. Through writing the letters and reading Ando’s pearls of wisdom, he gained insight into himself.
Raskin, a longtime commentator on National Public Radio, spoke from his home in San Francisco.
Q. What was the genesis of the book?
A. At a writers conference I attended, an agent invited anyone to submit the first page of their book to him. I decided to write one page. A few weeks later, he called and said he would like to talk to me about the rest of the book. At that point, there was no rest of the book. There was a story there, but we couldn’t quite figure it out. Then Momofuku died.
Q. You majored in computer science at Yale but started taking Japanese your senior year. Why Japanese?
A. It’s a weird story. When I was growing up in Roslyn (N.Y.) and before that in Brooklyn, I went to Chinatown a lot, and I always wanted to read the menus. At college, I looked at the course catalog. Chinese was at 8:30, too early for me. Then somebody told me Japanese had the same characters, sort of, and it was at 10:30. I like sushi, and I always loved oysters or clams on Long Island, so I decided to take Japanese.
Q. How did you start writing to Ando?
A. I was asked to write letters to God, and the person who asked me asked, “Do you believe in God?” I said I wasn’t really sure. Then the person said, “It doesn’t have to be the old man in the sky. It can be anyone.” I had just read an article about the inventor of instant ramen. It was intriguing to me, and it was still in my mind.
Q. How does this relate to your childhood on Long Island?
A. The book is about how I’m constantly sabotaging my relationships, often by being unfaithful. I trace some of that to things that happened in my family. My relationship with my father was distant. I think my issues with women stem from my issues with men.
Q. Have you solved your commitment issues?
A. I’m not married. But the woman I meet at the end of the book, Emily, we’re still together. It’s been a little more than a year and a half.
