Prison Ramen: Recipes and Stories from Behind Bars (4 page)

Mustard

Ketchup

Lettuce leaves or shredded lettuce

1 slice onion

2 slices cheese

2 slices tomato

A few hot pickle wheels

1 cooked hamburger patty

Note:
The hamburger patty would have been smuggled from the kitchen.

1. Open the Ramen wrapper at one end only. Leave the Ramen inside. Set aside the seasoning packet.

2. Hold the open wrapper edge with one hand. With the other, pour the water into the wrapper. Seal with both hands for about a minute.

3. Drain off excess water, leaving only the cooked square of Ramen in the bag.

4. Place the open buns side by side on a plate. Spread the bun halves with mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup, and top with the lettuce, onion, cheese, tomato, and pickles.

5. Place the hamburger patty in the middle. Place the Ramen square on top.

6. Sprinkle a little of the seasoning on top of the Ramen square. Close up the sandwich.

by Neil Brown Jr.

I
was out late in L.A., on my way to see someone my lady would
not
have approved of, if you know what I mean. At 1:00 a.m., I was pulled over by a police car. The officers pulled me out of my car. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back. You have an outstanding warrant.” An outstanding warrant? They hadn’t even run my damn ID! I wanted to freak out, but deep down I was starting to feel like something else was up. I didn’t have any warrants; there was nothing they could possibly find.
Why the hell am I here?

The officer cuffed me and threw me into the police car. They searched my car, coming up with nothing and clearly getting frustrated. Then another car pulled up. I was bracing myself for the worst. Instead, the officer grabbed my wallet and ran my ID. Then he came over and opened the car door, took the cuffs off, looked me in the eye, and said, “Thank you for your time. Stay out of trouble.” That was it. He never told me why I was detained, and the so-called warrant evaporated. They all gave me a look that said, “You need to go
home
now.”

In all, I was detained for nearly two hours. Yes, I was innocent of law-breaking, but now it was too late to step out on my lady as I had been planning to do. I believe it was instant karma, that’s why I didn’t make a fuss. I kept thinking,
I’m sorry baby. I’ll never do this again! I love you!

Neil Brown Jr.
is an actor who has appeared in many movies and TV series, including the action film
Battle: Los Angeles
, the new independent sketch comedy
King Bachelor’s Pad
, and the recent release
Straight Outta Compton: The Story of N.W.A.

Ingredients

1 pack of chili flavor Ramen

1 cup boiling water

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 beef sticks (such as Slim Jim), chopped into bite-size pieces

¼ cup chopped chives

Hot sauce

1. Crush the Ramen in the wrapper and empty into a bowl. Set aside the seasoning packet.

2. Add the water, cover, and let sit for about 8 minutes

3. Drain off excess water.

4. Add the seasoning and mix well.

5. Add the mayonnaise, Slim Jims, and chives. Mix well.

6. Add the hot sauce to taste.

D
oing time through the years, I “visited” some of the worst prison yards in California. But every once in a while, something good would show itself. One of the things I treasured while serving time at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo was sharing an herb garden with some of the homies. Most of the seeds we planted came from our families. Some came from the correctional officers themselves. Man, we grew some of the tastiest vegetables in prison.

The garden belonged to the West L.A. homies. Pretty soon other guys caught on and made their own gardens. We even shared seeds and bragged about our crops to each other. We used these homegrown vegetables to make our meals that much closer to home cooking. It all ended on the day someone took tomato plant leaves to make a toxic tea, poisoning another inmate. It was tough to watch officers pulling out our crops.

Ingredients

2 packs chili flavor Ramen

1 cup water

½ can (12-ounce can) Coca-Cola

1 packet Sweet’N Low

Pinch of garlic powder

½ cup pork skins or rinds

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon strawberry jelly

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce

1 cup packaged salad mix (carrots and cabbage with lettuce works well)

1. Crush the Ramen in the wrappers and empty into a large microwavable bowl. Add the seasoning.

2. Add the water, Coke, Sweet’N Low, garlic powder, pork skins, honey, and butter. Mix well. Cover and microwave for 5 minutes, until the Ramen is soft.

3. Combine the jelly, soy sauce, and chili garlic sauce in a separate large microwavable bowl. Cover and microwave for 3 minutes, until bubbling.

4. Add the Ramen mixture and the salad to the sauce. Mix well.

by Danny Trejo

M
y fondest memories—if you can call them that—of being incarcerated were the weekends. We’d get a bunch of guys together and lay out a spread. Just breaking bread with friends. We’d get whatever we could scrape up—Ramen, chili, popcorn, even hard-boiled eggs. It was like a potluck or picnic, but prison style.

The weekend spreads helped soothe the disappointment of not getting a visit. No matter how tough you look, when it’s visiting day and you know you’re not getting one, it’s hard. You think about all the people who would have visited you if you weren’t a three-time loser. Back when I was in juvenile hall, my mom, dad, sister, brother, and everybody would come visit me. When I hit Youth Authority, visits got thinner. In the pen, my mom was the only one who wrote to me.

The weekend spreads helped me think
That’s not important
, this
is important.
My friends, my
camaradas
, were important to me. I knew my family wasn’t going to visit, but I’d have a family feeling with my homeboys.

Danny Trejo.
Before he became known for playing the anti-hero in dozens of movies and TV series, Danny Trejo was a drug counselor, often helping teenage kids.

Ingredients

2 packs chili flavor Ramen

1½ cups boiling water

About 1 cup chopped cooked pork sausage (9 ounces)

1 small bag (2 ounces) Doritos (any flavor)

Tabasco sauce

2 bags (4 ounces each) corn nuts (any flavor)

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

½ onion, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

3 jalapeño chiles, chopped

2 tablespoons squeezable cheese

1. Crush the Ramen in the wrappers and empty into a bowl. Set aside the seasoning packets.

2. Add the water, cover, and let sit for 8 minutes.

3. Drain off excess water.

4. Add the seasoning, sausage, Doritos, Tabasco to taste, corn nuts, mayonnaise, onion, tomato, and jalapeños. Mix well.

5. Add the cheese and mix again.

I
n the current federal prison system, you’re not allowed to carry money. All currency is gained by electronic transfers. An inmate’s ID card serves as a debit card. An inmate can purchase items at the commissary or send money home by swiping the ID card. It can also be used for buying stuff from prison-sanctioned mail-order catalogs—clothes, shoes, and sundries that are mailed to you in prison. The money in your account is either sent from someone in the free world, or you earn it doing a job in prison. The legitimate jobs pay from ten cents a day to $150 a month. A lot more money is made by gambling or selling drugs to people in prison.

Sometimes an inmate can rack up some serious debt—hundreds or even thousands of dollars—and will have to pay through a “mail-out.” This is when the debtor sends the person he owes payment, with help from an outsider, a money order or cashier’s check. Some inmates I’ve known had accounts of more than $100,000. Now there’s a cap on how much money an inmate can have on his books because there was a lot of dirty money washing. An inmate’s associate could send him a cashier’s check or money order from drug sales or some other illegal act and in turn the inmate could send money elsewhere in the form of a clean federal check. The system was used this way for years. It surprised me how long it took the IRS to finally catch on.

Ingredients

1 pack Ramen (any flavor)

1 cup boiling water

1 cup cooked white rice

About 3 tablespoons unsweetened orange flavor Kool-Aid

1 bag (about 6 ounces) pork skins or rinds

Note:
For spicier flavor, try a dash of hot sauce on top of the porkies.

1. Crush the Ramen in the wrapper and empty into a large bowl. Save the seasoning packet for another use.

2. Add the water, cover, and let sit for 8 minutes.

3. Drain off excess water.