Pot Noodle
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Cheap (and regarded by some as rubbish) easy-to-prepare noodle and sauce snacks, provided in plastic pots with a foil lid. Pot Noodle is by far the most successful heated snack brand in the UK, and is currently owned by Unilever. It is a perfect example of geek food.
IMPORTANT NOTE: most of the pseudo-reviews below are now meaningless, because Unilever has slashed the salt content in Pot Noodles. Therefore they're all pretty bland now. However, you can make a Chicken and Mushroom one edible by adding 1/3rd of a Knorr chicken stock cube. Result!
A Pot Noodle, yesterday
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Preparation
The Pot Noodle brand's success has come about largely through the ease of preparation. Requiring very little action from the hungry eatee, Pot Noodles go from the cupboard to a ready meal in four steps:
- Remove foil lid
- Add boiling water
- Stir, wait two minutes, and stir again
- Add sachet contents
It is then ready to eat, usually with a fork. Some Noodlers prefer to discard the sachet of extra flavouring.
Chicken and Mushroom
The most popular flavour of Pot Noodle, this is supplied with a fairly convincing taste and a sachet of Soy Sauce. Extra ingredients include small pieces of mushroom, sweetcorn, a scattering of tiny chives to add colour variation, and little lumps of soya to simulate chicken chunks.
Chicken and Mushroom Pot Noodles are very satisfying for the first few mouthfuls; about halfway through, though, they tend to be overly strong. By the end you're usually quite fed up with them.
Around 2006 the recipe was changed to make the Pot Noodles "healthier". This mostly involved cutting down on the amount of salt in the recipe, with a corresponding loss of flavour.
Seedy Sanchez
Aguably the best Pot Noodle flavour. An imitation of Mexican food, these contain small green peppers and a sachet of Salsa Sauce -- very tasty from start to finish.
Bombay Bad Boy
The 'Hot Noodle'. Very fiery, especially with the sachet contents added. Like the Chicken and Mushroom snack, this is available in a 'King' form (about a third larger than the normal size).
Pizza
Sadly, Unilever stopped production of this line a few years ago. It tasted of a cheese and tomato pizza, and with some Tabasco Sauce sprinkled on top it was delicious.
Chow Mein
Tastes of pure chemicals. The sauce is overly thick and cludgy, and it's not even remotely Chinese in taste or texture.
Beef and Tomato
A pretender to the throne of best-tasting Pot Noodle, but the line "Beef and tomato is for girls, real men eat Chicken and Mushroom Pot Noodles" remains a great way to start a pub fight.
Posh Noodle
A successful attempt to broaden the Pot Noodle appeal. Rather than the semi-thick white noodles produced in a Welsh factory, Posh Noodles use darker, thinner noodles imported from Thailand. The sauce is much thinner -- more soup-like -- and tastes considerably more convincing. There's also greater variety in the ingredients (the Chilli flavour having chilli peppers, mushrooms, leeks, onion and more).
Posh Noodles are more of a substantial meal. Whereas traditional Pot Noodles serve as a quick snack when one can't be bothered making anything else, Posh Noodles are more filling, flavoursome and satisfying. Their preparation is identical to the originals.
Fun Pots
Small Pot Noodles targeted at children. The main difference is that the noodles are broken up into small strips, like canned spaghetti.
King Pot
Paul Hudson keeps a few of these in his drawer along with a Cockroach Phrasebook in case nuclear disaster ever hits.
Historical notes
Plastic pot foods to which one adds boiling water were, according to most sources, conceived in Japan in the 1970s. Nissin had an enormously popular Cup Noodle range, which strived to emulate the ramen taste in an ultra-fast-preparation form. They were particularly enyoyable with Calpis Water.
The Pot Noodle range diversified in the late 90s and early 2000s with Pot Pasta and Pot Sweet; both of these failed in the market. Today, the main alternative to noodles is the Pot Rice flavours, usually recreating Indian tastes. Pot sweet had spicy apple flavour and one with a blackberry type filling.
The Pot Noodle factory
