Over the past few decades, China has pumped billions of dollars into Algeria to build ports, solar plants, and dozens of industries. That represents an important engine of modernization for the North African country. Yet the more lasting impact of this bilateral partnership may be better measured in noodles than steel girders. Chinese investments brought Chinese workers, who in turn brought with them a taste for home. Over time, a ramen craze has swept across Algiers. In kitchens and markets across the capital, writes Audrey Thibert, Algerians and Chinese fuse their culinary cultures and speak in broken versions of each other’s languages. If the world’s leaders gathering in New York this week need a metaphor for blending harmoniously, they may find it in a bowl of “chorba beïda” with pulled noodles.