THE COOKBOOK TEST #0094: PRISON RAMEN

INSTALLMENT #0094 (PAID) PRISON BOOM / STORIES BEHIND BARS / TREJO'S MACHETE RAMEN

Dear Subscribers,

A comment on my recent review of Best-Ever Homemade Ramen said: "Would be interesting to compare to the Prison Ramen cookbook," and that got my mind going. I'd never heard of the Prison Ramen cookbook, but the name put a hook into me, and I ordered it immediately.

America is already a pretty carceral place, and with the rise of overseas concentration camps, the superfunding of ICE, and the exciting new "Everglades Alcatraz" we seem to be collectively determined to put more and more people into cages.

With that in mind, it's a pretty good time to think about what it means to put a human being behind bars - what the experience feels like, and what it does to the soul.

Prison Ramen is an exercise in culinary empathy, and while it's not full of yummy high nutrition Instagram-ready eats, it's a testament to what happens behind bars, and what's possible there when people work together to take care of one another.

at your service,

James

PRISON RAMEN
CLIFTON COLLINS JR. AND GUSTAVO "GOOSE" ALVAREZ
WORKMAN PUBLISHING | 2023 | $16

The bulk of Prison Ramen consists of first-hand prison memories (mostly from the authors, but some from actual former prisoners with some slight or impressive claim to celebrity) paired with barebones, mostly ramen-based recipes that may or may not have come from the ex-cons in question.

The memoirs vary wildly - some are flimsy (if not actively implausible), some are legitimately tragic, some are hilarious - but they build, brick by brick, a first-hand account of prison: the loneliness, the hopelessness, the struggle, the camaraderie, and the fight to retain one's sense of humanity.

And the recipes range from the simplest of concepts (ramen-based trail mix, an oatmeal peanut butter honey workout shake) to relatively complex concoctions featuring everything from seafood (canned, sure) to presumably scarce fresh produce.

For a taste of the book, here's Danny Trejo's prison story: