Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Digital cuisine
The new personal chef will be a 3D printer in your kitchen, one that's
hooked up to the Internet to await text messages or email instructions
about your next meal.
When I talk about 3D printing food, people's reaction is usually amusement
blended with a tiny bit of revulsion. There's something about squeezing raw
food stuffs through a print head that in many people's minds, is a bit, well,
freakish. Interesting, certainly. But just too grotesquely processed.
Yet, food printing gets people excited. Once, outside a hotel in Washington,
DC, the hotel's taxi stand manager saw me struggling to carry a boxy, unwieldy
Fab@home printer. He abandoned his taxi stand and bounded over, but not to
get me a taxi. He wanted a closer look at the 3D printer.
“I saw that thing on CNN!” the man shouted, pointing to the printer. “Are
you the guy that was doing the food printing?” he asked. I conirmed that yes
indeed, this machine and I were indeed the same duo that he had seen on TV.
The man examined the Fab@home I was carrying and as he hailed the taxi,
excitedly continued. “My wife and I watched that show, and she wants to get
one of these. She's got a bunch of ideas for making Angry Bird cookies. And
my brother-in-law - he should probably print himself some broccoli…”
Later that week at a conference of hotel executives, I gave a presentation
about food printing. The conference's theme was “What Lies Ahead in the
Hospitality Industry?” Throughout the day, a few dozen hotel executives
listened and sat politely, occasionally scribbling down notes. To break the
tedium, speakers and conference attendees periodically wandered to the back
of the room to nibble on a gourmet snack or reill a coffee cup. Finally, after a
long day of listening and eating my session on food printing began.
I put Fab@home on a table, loaded up with cookie dough, and started a print
job. After a few minutes, the audience started craning their necks to see what
