Last year, the Japanese company that created instant ramen sold “46 billion” packs and cups of pre-flavored dried noodles. It is a ubiquitous food, especially beloved by anyone looking for a cheap, tasty bite–including, it turns out, prisoners, who buy instant ramen at the commissary and use it as the building block for all sorts of meals that foster bonds of loyalty and friendship. Now “Prison Ramen” takes readers behind bars, with 65 ramen recipes combined with stories of prison life from the inmates who devised them, including celebrities like Slash from Guns n’ Roses and the actor Shia LaBeouf. Think of this as a cookbook of ramen hacks. Here’s Ramen Goulash. Onion Tortilla Ramen Soup. The Jailhouse Hole Burrito. Orange Porkies–chili ramen + white rice + 1/2 bag of pork skins + orange-flavored punch. Ramen Nuggets. Slash’s J-Walking Ramen, and the incredible Koinonia Ramen spread, packed with ramen, jalapeNos, beef jerky, and more that “cooks” in an industrial plastic garbage bag and will feed 15 to 20. The coauthors are childhood friends–one an ex-con, now free and living in Mexico, and the other a highly successful Hollywood character actor who has enlisted friends and celebrities to contribute their recipes and stories. Forget the typical recipe headnote about precious, organic ingredients–these stories are the real deal, each a first-person, firsthand look inside prison life, a scared-straight reality complementing the offbeat recipes.
