Watching Noodle-Making Videos on YouTube
By Robbi Nester
“Ars longa, vita brevis” --Hippocrates The noodle master Peter Song once said a chef must make 100 bowls of noodles a day, all by hand, to learn the craft, to knead the pyramid of flour and water from a pile of disparate dust till it comes together in a ball, until it shines, to stretch and pull it, twist it into a rope, an umbilicus pulsing with life. Only then can the chef bring it down hard onto the butcher block like a cat-of-nine-tails, whack it till it separates into strands, long fibers that weren’t there before. It doesn’t matter how many times I watch it, I can’t see how it’s done. He doesn’t estimate how many pounds of flour, how many hours and days I will need to stand over this table before the noodles finally unfold in my hand, spring to life in the roil of the steaming water, tender as clouds.
Robbi Nester is a retired college educator and author of four books of poetry (plus a few manuscripts currently making the rounds). She hosts two poetry reading series on Zoom per month. You can learn more about this and her work on her website: robbinester.net.
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Lovely work, Robbi!
So lovely and satisfying.