Digital gastronomy: the latest blog-fuelled food theory “prints” meals out of flavoured goop
Hungry nerds are rejoicing over the invention of two graduate students at MIT: a three-dimensional food printer. This strange next step in food technology, dubbed Cornucopia, resembles a mutant toaster oven that, in theory, mixes up liquid flavours in canisters, heats or cools the mixture, then “extrudes” the ordered dish at the press of a button. Its inventors extol such virtues as “ultimate control” over a dish’s origin, yet something tells us 100-mile dieters won’t trust goop from a canister.
At present, the idea is only on paper, but lazy eaters and sci-fi fans across the Web have blogged about Cornucopia with gusto, hailing it as “the next major revolution in food preparation.” Traditionalists—otherwise known as eaters of non-extruded food—are predicting that if the concept ever becomes reality, the food will likely taste like garbage.
• Cornucopia: Digital Gastronomy [MIT]
• MIT’s Food Printer Is Making Ferran Adrià Weak at the Knees [Gizmodo]
• 3-D Food Printers [Trendhunter]
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/food/digital-gastronomy-the-latest-blog-fuelled-food-theory-prints-meals-out-of-flavoured-goop/&title=Digital gastronomy: the latest blog-fuelled food theory “prints” meals out of flavoured goop&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/FoodPrinter.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_17585" align="alignleft" width="350" caption="The food printer: ASCII seems like a distant memory (Photo courtesy of MIT)"][/caption]
Hungry nerds are rejoicing over the invention of two graduate students at MIT: a three-dimensional food printer. This strange next step in food technology, dubbed Cornucopia, resembles a mutant toaster oven that, in theory, mixes up liquid flavours in canisters, heats or cools the mixture, then “extrudes” the ordered dish at the press of a button. Its inventors extol such virtues as "ultimate control" over a dish’s origin, yet something tells us 100-mile dieters won’t trust goop from a canister.
At present, the idea is only on paper, but lazy eaters and sci-fi fans across the Web have blogged about Cornucopia with gusto, hailing it as “the next major revolution in food preparation.” Traditionalists—otherwise known as eaters of non-extruded food—are predicting that if the concept ever becomes reality, the food will likely taste like garbage.
• Cornucopia: Digital Gastronomy [MIT]
• MIT's Food Printer Is Making Ferran Adrià Weak at the Knees [Gizmodo]
• 3-D Food Printers [Trendhunter]
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