Most of us don’t know how our food is made. We don’t know much about what our hamburgers ate when they were part of a cow, where that cow lived, or how it died. The same goes for bread flour and salad leaves. For us, the food system is largely a black box.
This disconnect is why farm-to-table is so successful. It aims to make us rethink food and consider the water, carbon, labor and care that goes into our meals.
I totally agree with this, but there is one area where we don’t need to hear too much about how our food is made. It’s plant-based meat. I’m a firm believer in the need for plant-based alternatives to animal products, but I think alternative protein companies sometimes get a little too caught up in how these meats are made – how they’re spun into fiber. I think so. Air fermentation! It’s an extrusion molding with a strange shape. Forget about taste.
I focus on food geeks. I’m a WIRED journalist, after all. But when you hear the din of technology frenzy at food conferences, there’s only one question. Is it tasty?
This is why I was pretty uncomfortable when someone offered to send me a bunch of 3D printed meat from an Israeli company. Even so, I thought that plant-based meat may be in a slump recently. Maybe that’s it did A technological breakthrough is needed to take it to the next level. Additionally, while 3D printing a steak is kind of cool, these test kits were apparently “pretty expensive” and not yet widely available. I asked PR to send them to me.
Plant-based meat needs to be more than just a buzz, says Arik Kaufman, CEO of Steakholder Foods, the Israeli company that sent me the 3D printed meat. “You need to eat great products,” he says. My associates sent me several types of plant-based meat. There was a 3D printed whitefish fillet, a 3D printed fillet steak, and a 3D printed marbled steak. There were also burgers and fish kebabs, but neither were 3D printed. In a clear sign that the future of food had arrived, the fillets were packaged in medical cargo boxes filled with dry ice, and soon the kitchen was filled with fog.
floppy fish
The benefit of 3D printing food, Kaufman said, is that it allows you to create delicious structures. His company produced two different printers. One prints the fish, the other cuts the meat, and both use pre-mixed ingredients. Meat processing machines can produce around 500 kg of plant-based meat per hour, while fish processing machines can produce at a rate of 100 kg per hour.
I cooked the white fish fillets according to the instructions in the pamphlet inside the box. I brushed it with oil and roasted it at 180°C (360°F) for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, the fillet still looked a little pale, so I left it a little longer to get some color on the surface. I thought pan searing the filet mignon might add a nicer skin, but I feared it wouldn’t have the structural integrity to survive flipping. And my suspicions were confirmed when my fillet fell apart between the baking tray and the plate. Fluffy filet mignon with (vegan) lemon butter and caper sauce, sprinkled with parsley and served with couscous.
Kaufman says 3D printing the white fish recreates the crispy texture of fish fillets. That wasn’t my eating experience. When cooked, the outer layer of the fish flaked off thinly, but the inside of the fillet had a mousse-like texture with just a hint of fish flavor.
(Tag Translate)Food and Drink
