Fun With Food
the “scientific identification and exploration of deliciousness.” ...... Insects are, of course, the miracle protein of the future: no one asking how we will feed the world can avoid talking about them. ...... grasshoppers, beetles, bees, crickets, and other insects that have served as food. ...... “Bee larvae could be the caviar of insects” and “Exoskeletons can be useful for crunch—for instance, in a roasted grasshopper.” ..... The team at the lab happily spends days developing granola with bee larvae and honey on oats and various seeds. Bee larvae, Evans notes enthusiastically, are half protein and 20 percent mono- and polyunsaturated fat (the good kind), with “loads of vitamins and minerals.” And insects might be genetically modified to be even higher in protein and what are thought to be beneficial lipids. ..... The immediate agricultural future of insects is in animal feed: such a diet is certainly better suited for chickens, who peck at insects, than the fish meal they’re given now. ...... the team wields a “spice rack of microbes” to ferment every kind of grain and fruit. The results appear in the grasshopper garum, that surrogate chocolate cake, and the food-friendly beers that, along with insects, are the main funded project at the lab. ...... Redzepi principles: going into a field, kicking an anthill, using pieces of bread to absorb the formic acid ants emit, and using that to add lemony notes to a stew—a trick they learned from a longtime forager. ..... the oak moss and peach base of one of the 20th century’s most enduring fragrances, Mitsuoko, and sprayed nebulized spruce tincture over a granita of peach juice, crystallized peach skins, and sheep’s-milk frozen yogurt, accompanied by crispy oak moss, to make what he calls a “magical, ethereal dessert.” ...... Much of this is play, blending science and cooking techniques with anthropology, sociology, and cultural history. ..... the new generations of chefs .... Whatever equipment fads come and go, chefs will always be in search of new flavors based on nature. ...... a national chapter of Slow Food ..... One late afternoon, following a day of checking on Aspergillae and the mummified deer leg, he was hand-chopping sheep’s heart, lung, stomach, liver, kidney, tongue, and suet and blending the result with oats, foraged herbs, and a good dousing of whiskey before stuffing it all into the heavy, enormous rumen, which had to be lifted into a pot—an all-hands-on-deck process that left everyone smelling strongly of sheep offal.
