Ramen Forever

An Artist’s Guide to Ramen

Ramen Forever celebrates the human relationship to the humble Japanese noodle dish that has taken Western culture by storm. Curated and produced by San Francisco-based artist and co-director of SWIM gallery, Yarrow Lazer-Smith a.k.a Yarrow Slaps. The “avant-garde cookbook” is an illustrated love letter to Ramen. The book seeks to unite and entertain a broad audience of art and food lovers by covering high-brow and low-brow noodle eating.

Included in the cookbook

• Recipes from ramen-loving artists
• Ramen illustrations from over 70 of the urban art scene’s most celebrated artists.
• Interviews with Ramen chefs and food personalities from all over the world.

The Vision

As an artist/foodie I wanted to curate a book that was artistic enough to be an art book, but food orientated enough to be a cookbook. Initially, I asked artists to illustrate their favorite instant noodle creations. Additionally, they could share a recipe, a title and the price of the ingredients needed to make the dish. Once this exciting instant noodle art started to come in, I knew that I needed more. I began to think about actual ramen and started to find and interview some of today’s top ramen chefs and enthusiasts. I went down the rabbit hole of ramen. This book is a visual record of my adventures.