My Wet Coast Life

Link: http://fluid.media.mit.edu/projects.php?action=details&id=79

I came across this article today on MIT's new Food Printer, Cornucopia, a Digital Gastronomy machine and the implications could be enormous. This machine allows you to print complex foods and have them cooked or cooled during the process. The project is called Cornucopia and it is a concept design for a personal food factory that brings the versatility of the digital world to the realm of cooking.

On the top of the machine is an array of canisters which will store your ingredients and will be dispensed as required based on what you are cooking, i mean printing...

This fabrication process not only allows for the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques, but it also allows the user to have ultimate control over the origin, quality, nutritional value and taste of every meal.

Follow up:

Now as for implications of this technology, lets look at the high end first. You can now create elaborate, flavor infused meals with precise control not available in a kitchen. The advantage is you can control which flavors would be present and in what strength and at what temperature it is cooked at. Now for traditional cooks, nothing beats the human taste bud and that's where it will come down to. Machines are only as good as there designer and any highly trained chef can adjust his meals to the taste he wants to present to his customers where as the machine will only do what it is programmed to do. I doubt the machine will make food and realize it needed a bit more pepper, salt or any other spice or a couple more minutes cooking (but yet again, that isn't mention so i can only assume).

One advantage i see is when you make that awesome, mouth watering meal with this printer, you can re-make it over and over again with little to no deviation from that first, mouth watering enjoyment. Something very hard to do in the real world. For those dieting, they can now control the amount of carbs, etc they are in taking while still having a satisfying meal.

This machine could also reduce waste as you can now cook a meal for as set amount of people or just one person using the machine where a cook would need to approximate the amount to cook (which could lead to either less food for the amount of people or too much food and now wasted). Other possible issue would be needing to cook a larger amount to allow for taste and flavor infusion. The fact it extrudes the food, i assume it will also speed up the cooking time as the density of the food material would be less so in turn it would be easier to heat through.

Now for third world or impoverished countries, you could set this up to create high protein meals, quickly and easily and in correct proportions for maximum utilization and distribution. You would still need to figure out logistics for power in rural areas but i bet it would be better for the environment as well as you could connect to a solar panel and deep cycle batteries to make self sufficient instead of chopping down the forest and making fires to cook with or bringing in propane for stoves.

Taking in recent news, the severe earthquake in Haiti, they could set up a huge array of these printers to start pumping out high protein, nutrient enriched meals in a safe, contamination free area compared to make-shift shelters or using possibly contaminated kitchens as nothing else is available. The meals nutrition could also be designed for that countries nutritional needs as each countries' peoples have different diets and nutritional requirements based on local flora and fauna.

This is one technology i would like to see hit a consumer level device. For the everyday Joe, this could allow for better food budgeting, ensuring the correct nutrition or dietary requirements and have every meal something to look forward to. It would also allow basic cooking aficionados to make more elaborate meals with little to no skill required. I know some people would be happy with this machine to be able to move away from Kraft Dinner and other easily cooked or instant foods we are currently over stimulated with every time we go shopping.

If you want to read more about the details of how the Cornucopia: Digital Gastronomy machine, you can view the PDF file here

I would like to hear back from you, the reader, on what you think of this machine and any other ideas or uses this machine could be applied to.