Food related…

Its been a while since I’ve posted about food or things related.

Sound-Enhanced Food (link)

Irena Chalmers has a great writeup of an event she attended where Heston Blumenthal of London’s famed Fat Duck was discussing his serving sonics with his food.

“Eating is a multisensory experience,” he says. And by George he’s right. He says his cooking is all about contrasts of texture and flavor. It’s based on knowledge: knowledge of anatomy and physiology and psychology and magic. In the brain the centers for taste and memory are anatomically very close together. He knows that. He also knows our own personal taboos and prejudices have a profound influence on our food preferences. So he creates a seafood composition in a shadow box, (a kind of deep picture frame). In went a base of sand (tapioca), and on it he carefully places three kinds of seaweed, an oyster, a razor clam, a sea urchin and a coverlet of ethereal white frothy foam. There’s a garnish of artfully arranged crystallized and fried anchovies. O.K. sounds good?

Sound is the operative word. To experience the full impact, enter the magician. The diner wears a couple of seashell microphone headphones. While savoring every tiny morsel, the conscious mind is enveloped with cries of seagulls and experiencing the sounds of waves crashing on the beach. Incredible! Transported to the seashore, the fish leaps from the icy waters, leaving a faint briny taste hovering on the lips.

What’s fascinating about this is an experiment in which the same seafood dish was accompanied, not with the sounds of the ocean, but with the grunting of pigs and the cackling of chickens. Not surprisingly everyone hated the food. Some even spat it out. (But the same folk loved the bacon and egg ice cream with the farmyard symphony resonating in their heads!)

Say Cheese Jacket! (link)

From the interesting to the gross, though worse is yet to come. Cosimo Cavallaro‘s site has some more unappetizing food art mixes on his site (like the Ham Bed) and an amusing Chocolate Jesus (any relation to Tom Waits?). Great song even if unrelated.

Japanese Insect Foods (link)

Wasps, specifically the type known as Digger Wasps, are baked into crackers – stingers and all – in the Japanese city of Omachi. The crispy critters are prepared and promoted by the Omachi digger wasp lovers club.

McDonalds Japan Goes No-Brand with Quarter Pounder Shops (link)

If you made me choose between a McQuarter Pounder and a Wasp Cracker I might just pick the cracker. However this is interesting, and once again kudos to InventorSpot for finding this, the store fronts and the packaging have no identifying markings, no overt branding. Now that might make them taste just a little less awful to me.

Top 10 Unusual Food Combinations (link)

Now this is a useful list of possibilities from pepper on chocolates to cooking some of the stems with the tomatoes to add flavour. Very cool.

Human form sushi plating (link)

Bodylicious X is Barcelona’s Design Code‘s new line of forms based on the occasional Japanese practice of serving sushi on nubile naked bodies. (Image courtesy of DavidReportBlog).

Russian Urine Exported to America: New, Improved Product? (Link)

Not exactly food related but let’s say comestible for some. Apparently this product is guaranteed to
be 100% Russian urine and comes in a number of flavours including Sea Breeze,Hunter’s brew, Not Filtered, and Original. They tout is as coming from the “life giving part of the human body”.

I envision a late night vodka session in a bare bones kitchen, with one of the bleary giving forth about how some people believe in the curative powers of inbibing urine and the light bulbs going off…Talk about a profit margin. And its not as though you have to go out and hire someone; the ultimate home business. Unless you are dying on a life raft lost at sea, piss drinking is not a logical or sane option for anyone who has any other liquid at hand, and what the Russians have neglected to mention is that the people who drink urine for health reasons, drink their own.

Scam artists and morons; a match made in heaven.