Hungry boffins turn 3D printer into snack maker
From Little Chef to Robo Chef?
When it comes to exquisite cuisine, who said you need pots and pans? Maybe soon we'll use computers and printers to fix up meals.
A team at New York's Cornell University has been hard at work with 3D food printers, creating strange dishes with ingredients from chocolate and hummus to turkey and celery, CBC News reports.
Pastes made from each food are squirted through nozzles in a carefully controlled environment, layering texture upon texture to create an edible 3D object. The software allows for detail that would have Gordon Ramsay blurting out expletives even he wouldn't be proud of should it be attempted by hand.
Check out this miniature spaceship made from scallops and cheese. Sound tasty? The finished article looks like the work of Captain Birdseye to me.
The process, the product, the product fried
The project, titled fab@home, is a collaboration with the NYC-based French Culinary Institute, who would like to see the tech used for new textures in food, such as gravy-absorbing meat sponges.
I can almost see it now - in a few years I'll be preparing lamb and print sauce for dinner, and they'll be a shout from upstairs: "Daaaad, we've run out of sugar cartridges." Perhaps not. ®
COMMENTS
Sorry to do this..
sudo make me a sandwich >> LPT1
Oh come on.. Someone had to do it.
You missed a bit
I know 'nix commands can be complicated but surely you meant:
sudo make me a sandwich | tee ~/cup >> /dev/parport0
"Here comes the train" just got real
hours of mealtime fun, and not just for the under-fives
It does have a taste
Tofu has little taste or texture. Quorn as packaged as mince / chunks does have a taste and a texture - a mild savoury taste slightly fungus / mushroomy in character which is not surprising considering what it's made of. I've munched enough while frying it up to know this.
Typically however it will be an ingredient in something else like a curry where it's taste would often be overshadowed. I think the stuff is great despite the amount of oil it absorbs. I have no issue with eating meat, but I enjoy quorn so much I'll cook something up with it from time to time.
