Started as borrowed Chinese noodles and quietly became the thing Japan's most proud of feeding people.
Fun fact: Japan voted instant ramen the nation's greatest 20th-century invention, ahead of the bullet train.
The Chinese have been making spring pancakes since forever, so technically brunch didn't invent them.
Fun fact: Analysis of 30,000-year-old grinding stones suggests early humans made a pancake-like flatbread from cattail starch.