Noodles: The Food of the Future?

Do androids dream of electric noodles? Rick Deckard tucks in in Blade Runner.

So I went to see Prometheus the other day, and was struck - not for the first time - by how the food eaten by characters in sci-fi films always seems to be noodles. (If anyone who's seen it can't remember, Noomi Rapace's character tucks into a bowl of noodles during some down time on the Prometheus, while wearing a fetching pair of white PJs.) It's not just Noomi. We first meet Blade Runner's Rick Deckard at the White Dragon noodle bar, where he chows down on a bowl while being hassled by the mysterious officer (and future commander of Battlestar Galactica!) Gaff. Neo talks about the 'really good noodles' he likes to eat at a neighbourhood joint in The Matrix. And who can forget the flying noodle bar that serves Bruce Willis's Korben Dallas at his own apartment window in The Fifth Element?

Now I think there are a few messages here. The most obvious is that the noodles are a symbol of globalization. Nowhere is this point more obviously made than in Blade Runner, where the denizens of the the future Los Angeles – and the people in the noodle bar – talk Cityspeak, a street patois supposedly made up of Japanese, German and a few other bits and pieces. (Actually they drop a bit of Hungarian, Chinese and Korean in there as well.) In a globalized world, we'll all speak a bit of everything, and eat a bit of everything too. Noodles are the perfect food to demonstrate this mishmash of cultures. It wouldn't send the same message if Deckard was tucking into traditional American fare like chicken fried steak or a hamburger.

Presumably there's also a nod to predictions of the growth of the economies of Far East countries such as China. As these countries become more powerful, these films are saying, we'll all eat more noodles. The fact that noodles are already a staple in so many Eastern countries means that they're a fair way to culinary world domination already, but in the future they'll be even more ubiquitous.

A more practical reason why noodles have made it to space is that they are a processed food, easily packaged, easily reconstituted. In Danny Boyle's Sunshine, the crew of the Icarus II eat noodles prepared in the ship's kitchen by the navigator (played by Benedict Wong, who also features in Prometheus - and plays the Street Countdown bloke in The IT Crowd!). It's a likely choice of dish. There'd be no fresh veg, meat or eggs on board a ship that's on a long mission. 

Maybe there's another point here: a prediction that we'll all eat less of the fresh stuff in the future anyway. Instead we'll stick to pills and packaged meals designed by nutritionists, or, in a worst-case scenario, survive on tins of sardines and Milkybars looted from the nearest shop or scavenged from a dead neighbour's fridge. I can't imagine Mad Max settling down to a quiet Sunday afternoon on the allotment. If the zombie apocalypse comes, we'll not be popping to the shops for early season asparagus and free-range chicken. We'll be refuelling on ramen.