Industry sources, do ramen in the kneading will be added to some "and pasta agent", generally "instant ash", so that the ramen and up to the sinewy and pliable, non-toxic to the human body. The ash is the alkali used to make ramen, generally speaking, "salt is the bone and alkali is the meat", the ash can soften the gluten, greatly improving the extensibility. The raw material of the "ash" is a kind of wild plant that grows on the dry mountain ridge - pong pong grass, and the ash burnt into it after it withers in late fall is called pong pong ash. In the past, people used it as a substitute for cooking soda to roll out the noodles and steamed buns, and now it is only used in ramen noodle shops. Authentic beef noodles must be used to pong ash water and noodles can not, otherwise, neither stretched out as fine as cotton thread "a nest of silk", but also will not have a tender texture "pong ash" since it is a kind of grass ash, there is no special chemical name, inside the role of the "Alkali", the main ingredient should be potassium carbonate, similar in nature and soda ash, not to say "carcinogenic" effect