For this week’s edition of NPR "Day to Day," I filed a report on "food hacking," a DIY cousin of the science-inspired branch of haute cuisine called molecular gastronomy.
28-year-old haxx0r and chef Marc Powell did a live demo of molecular cuisine at a recent Dorkbot in San Francisco, and I was there to stick microphones in the liquid nitrogen cooled almond-armagnac foam. It was a ton of fun, and tasted weird but wonderful — Boing Boing pal Eddie Codel was there, he’s chowing down on some laughing-gas-infused dessert in the image here. Scott Beale shot that photo, and many more. I mostly ate mutant strawberries.
The idea is to create dishes based on the molecular compatibilities of foods. For instance, unripe mango and pine share a molecular structure, so they might be tasty if combined. That’s the theory, anyway. Molecular gastronomists combine white chocolate and oysters for the same reason.
Archived audio, a recipe for “Nitro Pumpkin Seed Pie Horchata Foam” (mmm!), and links to books and web resources are all here. “Xeni Tech” archives for Day to Day are here.
Bonus: two things that didn’t make it into the story — the periodic table of elements, in Thai, that hangs on Marc’s kitchen wall: Link. You never know when you’re gonna need to look up a noble gas for your omelette. And another phonecam snap from the walls of hacker bed-and-breakfast Unicorn Precinct 13 — one day, all our meals will look like this: Link.
(Thanks, Karen Marcelo, and thanks Marc Powell!)