Future Food

In a future near you comes a NASA designed hot foods vending machine, a profound single estate Venezuelan chocolate from Valrhona, and a bright red shredded ketchup. No, I'm not having a jet-lag induced El Bulli flashback. I've tasted the future - and it's at SIAL 2004 - the Salon International de l'Alimentation - the Global Food Marketplace running this week in the outlands of Paris. One of the coolest things though is not for sale - yet. It's a collaborative exhibition with design students using consumer foods as the theme. Trippiest for me was specifically one project - a prototype package of jelly-like balls - each a different seafood flavour - like salmon flavoured versions of Ferran's infamous pea ravioli - this year it was the tea and lemon ice sphericos - only these concept versions were fish flavoured. It was a blast talking to the student artists - who do have a catalog out with a preface by Pierre Gagnaire who's a big fan of their faux foods. More with pix and links to come.