FOOD AS FORM

How does form impact our perceptions of food? In my recent explorations in entomophagy, I’ve been exploring how to capitalize on the strong impact presentation has on perception. After serving crickets, meal worms and silk worm larvae to a number of guests in unaltered forms, I tried a ground version of the trio of insects, mixed with a few ingredients for cohesion and added flavor. Below are photographs of the former and latter presentations.

(Sauteed crickets on a bed of lettuce.)

(Cricket, meal worm and silk worm larvae fritters.  Served with shredded carrot, cilantro and ricotta.)

The visibly intact insects drew a strong vocal reaction, the mental image being too much to overcome for 1/3 of the group. The ground insect fritters that looked nothing like insects, diners found attractive, and even despite being conscious of the ingredients, the mental association was almost entirely disengaged.

Breaching the same subject is this project by a group in the UK. Here a 3D printer pumps out shapes that the designers suggest might change the way entomophagy is viewed. Developed by Susana Soares, the Food Bioscience Department (Dr. Kenneth Spears) at London South Bank University, UWE, Bristol ( Dr. Peter Walter), Pestival and Steak Studio (Penelope Kupfer).

http://www.susanasoares.com/index.php?id=82

ENTOMOPHAGY TRIAL RUN

As an experimental preparation for a greater undertaking, I spent this weekend testing out some entomophagy recipes, based on my own intuition and some scavenged base recipes. Thanks to Harman Johar at World Entomophagy, I picked up ready-to-cook crickets and meal worms that had been organically raised and killed (more on this in a future post) before being packed and shipped. The first order I placed, just as a test, was for 100g of each insect.

Through my reading and research so far, I’d imagined the taste of both insects to have a nut-like flavor. My cooking partner and I started the experiment by tasting an unseasoned cricket… softer than I thought it would be, with the predicted nutty (woody, even) taste, followed by a pungent aftertaste. My co-chef described the experience as similar to eating asparagus. Then we each popped in a meal worm, which had a satisfyingly crunchy outside and a peanutty/earthy flavor. Here, you can see the insects in their packaged state, as they arrived from World Entomophagy.

To compliment the woody, dryness of the insects, we wanted to try a creamy recipe, and opted for a simple quiche. Second on our menu was a more flavor-packed recipe, a beet and meal worm curry, and then to finish the event off, we made a last minute decision to whip up a garlic cricket potato hash. The creamy quiche worked well, and the insects provided an enjoyable texture, though less flavor than I’d hoped. The curry was delicious, but probably too strong in flavor for the subtle insects; the meal worms were more of an attractive garnish, also adding texture here. The cricket hash was the star of the show – simple ingredients, and lots of crickets, the pungent flavor was most effective in this dish. We enjoyed a fruity riesling with the meal, a satisfying lightness for the hash especially.

For round two, we hope to incorporate a sweet dish, possibly a kettle-corn style preparation for the crickets.

TIME AND TRAVEL

Belated news at this point, but the project, ‘The Non-Earth State’ which I worked on in collaboration with Chloé Brillatz, a planetary science researcher at UCL, was exhibited last month in Berlin, Germany at a show called ‘Time and Travel’ curated by Thomas Volker. The group show consisted of art and design artifacts by RCA students and alumni, all of which dealt with the topic apparent in the show’s title. Below, is a photograph from the recent installation, courtesy of Volker.

POPULARITY OF DISGUST

The New York Times published an article today on the growing interest within the psychology community regarding ‘disgust.’ The studies are particularly related to consumption, interpersonal relations and sexuality, but also span topics such as political reaction.

Several influential characters are cited in the article. Paul Rozin at the University of Pennsylvania is quoted as saying, "It was always the other emotion,… Now it’s hot.” Valerie Curtis from the London School of Public Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says, “It’s in our everyday life… It determines who we’re going to kiss, who we’re going to mate with, who we’re going to sit next to. It determines the people that we shun, and that is something that we do a lot of.” Darwin is cited describing ‘the face of disgust, documented by Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne in his classic study of facial expressions in 1862, as if one were expelling some horrible-tasting substance from the mouth.’

In the article, disgust’s ‘power to affect behavior’ is revered, and a specific public relations campaign is mentioned as a positive use for this emotion. The antagonist in the youth-targeted skit is a man who makes candy from mud and worms, among other things. Here, a seemingly natural disgust of eating worms is employed. Though is this assumed reaction to worms mostly cultural? Are worms inherently dangerous to consume? Would the YouTube babys eating lemons (also referenced in the article) be equally likely to eat a worm? And might they be less likely to form Duchenne’s expression of disgust when they do?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/science/disgusts-evolutionary-role-is-irresistible-to-researchers.html

Illustration by Ron Barrett

THE GREEN VILLAGE

"The Green Village, [is] a transdisciplinary critical design research project exploring the spatial potentials of interaction design within the context of mediated urban environments with a particular focus on the role of nature in the city. Concepts, thoughts, ideas and inspiring references are collected by: Daniele Mancini, Guido Maciocci The Green Village is a research project by the Interaction Design Workshop at IED Roma "

They’re linking to the Symbiotic Households project on their blog, amongst other fantastic projects by the likes of Chris Woebkin and Auger Loizeau…

http://thegreenvillage.tumblr.com/post/3764169354/symbiotic-households-by-elliot-p-montgomery

MICHAEL JANTZEN

There’s a recent blogpost on www.TreeHugger.com about the dome houses built by Michael Jantzen in the early 1980′s using prefab agricultural building components. These images, modern and vintage interspersed, look very George Lucas.

http://www.treehugger.com/galleries/2011/10/michael-jantzen-amazing-1981-modular-steel-dome-house.php

Jantzen’s own site is http://humanshelter.org/

EAT YELLOW CAKE

A nice blog posting a laundry list of speculative and critical design works, Eat Yellow Cake "is a collection of research, stories and projects that embrace the anti-ideal." Written by Rachel Harding, graduate of the RCA.

http://www.eatyellowcake.com/

SEALAND – THE CONTESTED PRINCIPALITY

Back in the late 1960′s, an abandoned defense platform off the coast of England was occupied by Roy Bates, who crowned himself the prince, and his wife the princess. They claimed to be a sovereign principality, and in late 1968, the British courts ruled that England had no jurisdiction over Sealand as it was outside British Territory.

Supposedly, German courts ruled in 1978 that a man-made construction cannot be deemed a State territory, and therefore Sealand is not recognized, though I have not found confirmation of this ruling. More recently, after an attack and other difficulties, the Prince made attempts to sell the island. One offer seems to have come from The Pirate Bay, as a way to host servers on their own nation.

So where do we establish our understanding, our definition of the term ‘nation’? Can a nation only exist if it is observed by other nations’ rules?

http://www.sealandgov.org

LOVE THE EXISTING

In the industrial design documentary, ‘Objectified,’ Rob Walker of the NYTimes comments that he would like to launch an advertisement campaign in the name of things we already own. This program by The Guardian is in the same spirit – encouraging readers to project value onto those things that already exist.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/14/guardian-and-observer-book-swap-how-to-take-part

Photo credit – http://www.flickr.com/photos/guardianbookswap/6210192113

HOW TO GENTRIFY

Gentrification, the seemingly inevitable effect of young ‘creative types’ moving into lower-income urban neighborhoods, is both loved and despised by urbanites. A neighborhood undergoing gentrification slowly sees a decrease of it’s dollar stores and nail salons, but also a rise in living prices. Here’s an interesting approach: break the process down into five easy steps to incite gentrification. Is it in irony that a DIY treatment of gentrification is adopted by Joe Mont for ‘The Street?’ How else would the artsy up-and-coming have it?

1. Improved public transportation is an initial doorway to gentrification, as it makes an urban neighborhood more attractive to commuters.

2. Rebranding the neighborhood, usually an effort by real estate agents, is a way for marketers to disassociate an area with its recent past, and to give it a new face.

3. Affordance of meeting friends and wireless internet use, while sipping coffee that’s beyond your standard bodega offering, is a telltale sign of gentrification.

4. Co-opting or crossing the ethnic character is also a common effect of gentrification. Tortilla factories are turned into hip taco stands, and sites of factories bear the same names when they’re converted to clubs or art galleries.

5. Introduction of niche shops and specialty boutiques, like "cupcake focused bakeries," as Mont says, show the mounting success of the gentrification. These stores don’t cater to the lower levels on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but rather cultural novelties that offer entertainment over anything else.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11254463/1/how-to-gentrify-a-neighborhood.html