About Celebrity Bites

OK, first thing we did yesterday was to go back to the Innovations building and read everything there that was in English. They had a poster of Endangered Foods: coffee, potatoes, bananas, avocados and fish — that was a sad-making exhibit to say the least. The food exhibit, called Bistro In Vitro — speculative cultured meat dishes that might be on our plates in the future — is one of so many examples at the Floriade of future thinking — in this case, forward thinking on drugs, I’m pretty sure, ’cause wouldn’t you have to be stoned out of your mind to think up celebrity bites???? They were exploring different ways to manufacture food (let’s not call it food, let’s call it “nourishment” (and I definitely mean the quote marks!)) through different processes that don’t involve land and whole plants and animals. One way is the use of stem cells. Someone thought up “knitted meat”, a way to make extensive strings of meat muscle fiber not limited by the size of an animal. They actually cultured a “meat thread” made from long strands of muscle tissue and, on a special knitting machine, crafted a deep red meat thread into a steak — looked like hamburger meat to me, but it was formed to spell out “MEAT” 2″ high and 5″ from one continuous strand at least 50′ long. Another idea is to make cheese in a stainless steel “cow”. See-through sashimi, looking like a transparent lotus blossom, is sashimi grown without blood vessels, nerves or organs — they say “a nearly invisible meat with a pure, delicate flavor. The transparent fugu sashimi has been developed from meltingly tender bluefin tuna, but is even fattier and tastier than the original tuna.” Hmmmmm. The invitro oysters were very weird looking indeed. Also shown were dodonuggets, made through advanced genetic sequencing and tissue engineering from a dried specimen of a dodo in the Oxford university natural history museum — “taste what the first sailors ate when they visited Mauritius in 1598”. Brilliant thinking, all, really, but still creepy as hell. Other ideas: making plane parts out of mycellium; making leather out of mangos, with less processing, energy and waste, and no toxins, than current practice; replacing dyes with seaweeds, on and on. Laird knows more about the building materials in the next building. Incredible advances in innovative building materials…

YAY, our second fantastic memorable meal! A two-star Michelin chef created the 3-course menu with wine pairings. First, a glass of prosecco to welcome us to the table. First course, I had Jeruzalem (Dutch spelling) artichoke with Dutch shrimp and belper knolle (?? the menu showed a flower symbol next to the item) ; Laird had tenderloin tataki with chimichurri on top, turnip, pear puree on the bottom and snowpea shoot garnish. Second course, I had sea bream on top of asparagus and tandoori butter sauce with the cutest sweet potato art, a little oblong of potato with three small piped mashed sweet potato “hats”, with delicate pea shoots; Laird had Dutch (golden) asparagus with pearl barley, egg yolk and ponzu flakes. Third course, I had parsley ice cream (more like sorbet; I like rye bread ice cream better), lime and bay laurel; Laird had cheesecake with white chocolate, strawberry and basil. I think I’m beginning to like white wine again — all three that I had were amazing. Laird liked his, too. What a great way to spend a couple of hours!

Today, we might go into Amsterdam, we’re not really sure. It’s a do-nothing day, so far.