Profiling a range of culinary pioneers working across the fields of art, science, theatre, catering and design, Experimental Eating demonstrates how current creative collaborations are pushing the boundaries of how we understand, experience and relate to food and the rituals of dining. The book encompasses unusual and cutting-edge foods, radical dining events, "kitchen laboratory" experiments, food sculptures and other documentation of the transient events that make up this field of work. A selection of short essays situate these contemporary practices alongside various historical and cultural contexts, including: a history of food in modern and contemporary art, such as Gordon Matta-Clarke's FOOD café, Rikrit Tiravanija's FREE and Pad Thai events, and Grizedale Arts and Yangjiany Group's makeshift cafe for Frieze Projects 2012; a study of the connections between dining, theatre and ritual; and a survey of recent research in science and technology, and how this may impact on how we make, eat and perceive food.

This textbook presents the scientific basis for understanding the nature of food and the principles of experimental methodology as applied to food. It reviews recent research findings and specific technological advances related to food. Taking an experimental approach, exercises are included at the end of each chapter to provide the needed experience in planning experiments. Emphasizing the relationships between chemical and physical properties, basic formulas and procedures are included in the appendix. - Demonstrates the relationships among composition, structure, physical properties, and functional performance in foods - Suggested exercises at the end of each chapter provide students with needed experience in designing experiments - Extensive bibliographies of food science literature - Appendix of basic formulas and procedures

A provocative study of the creative dining experience as a multisensory performance. Experimental Dining examines the work of four of the world's leading creative restaurants: el Bulli in Catalonia, the Fat Duck in Berkshire, Noma in Copenhagen, and Alinea in Chicago. The author contends that the work of the experimental restaurant, while operating explicitly within an economy of experiences, is not absolutely determined by that political and economic context. Exploring gastronomy as experience, Paul Geary examines the restaurants' creative methods and the broader ideological discourses within which they operate. Bringing together ideas around food, philosophy, performance, and cultural politics, the book offers an interdisciplinary understanding of the world of experimental experiential dining.

As we taste, chew, swallow, digest, and excrete, our foods transform us, while our eating, in its turn, affects the wider earthly environment. In Eating in Theory Annemarie Mol takes inspiration from these transformative entanglements to rethink what it is to be human. Drawing on fieldwork at food conferences, research labs, health care facilities, restaurants, and her own kitchen table, Mol reassesses the work of authors such as Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Hans Jonas, and Emmanuel Levinas. They celebrated the allegedly unique capability of humans to rise above their immediate bodily needs. Mol, by contrast, appreciates that as humans we share our fleshy substance with other living beings, whom we cultivate, cut into pieces, transport, prepare, and incorporate—and to whom we leave our excesses. This has far-reaching philosophical consequences. Taking human eating seriously suggests a reappraisal of being as transformative, knowing as entangling, doing as dispersed, and relating as a matter of inescapable dependence.

Most Americans eat genetically modified food on a daily basis, but few of us are aware we’re eating something that has been altered. Meanwhile, consumers abroad refuse to buy our engineered crops; their groceries are labeled so that everyone knows if the contents have been modified. What’s going on here? Why does the U.S. government treat engineered foods so differently from the rest of the world? Eating in the Dark tells the story of how these new foods quietly entered America’s food supply. Kathleen Hart explores biotechnology’s real potential to enhance nutrition and cut farmers’ expenses. She also reveals the process by which American government agencies decided not to label genetically modified food, and not to require biotech companies to perform even basic safety tests on their products. Combining a balanced perspective with a sense of urgency, Eating in the Dark is a captivating and important story account of the science and politics propelling the genetic alteration of our food.

Kids take the reins in the kitchen with this hands-on book of edible science experiments! With revised and updated material, a brand-new look, and hours of innovative, educational experiments, this science classic by award-winning author Vicki Cobb will be devoured by a whole new generation of readers. Combine with such books as Awesome Science Experiments for Kids to help junior scientists continue their learning, whether at home or in a classroom. With contemporary information that reflects changes in the world of processing and preserving foods, this cookbook demonstrates the scientific principles that underpin the chemical reactions we witness every day—just by cooking. And once readers have tested their theories and completed their experiments, they can eat the results! From salad dressing to mayonnaise, celery to popcorn, and muffins to meringues, this book uses food to make science accessible to a range of tastes. Also included is essential information on eating healthfully, plus additional resources for further exploration.

The science behind a good meal: all the sounds, sights, and tastes that make us like what we're eating—and want to eat more. Why do we consume 35 percent more food when eating with one other person, and 75 percent more when dining with three? How do we explain the fact that people who like strong coffee drink more of it under bright lighting? And why does green ketchup just not work? The answer is gastrophysics, the new area of sensory science pioneered by Oxford professor Charles Spence. Now he's stepping out of his lab to lift the lid on the entire eating experience—how the taste, the aroma, and our overall enjoyment of food are influenced by all of our senses, as well as by our mood and expectations. The pleasures of food lie mostly in the mind, not in the mouth. Get that straight and you can start to understand what really makes food enjoyable, stimulating, and, most important, memorable. Spence reveals in amusing detail the importance of all the “off the plate” elements of a meal: the weight of cutlery, the color of the plate, the background music, and much more. Whether we’re dining alone or at a dinner party, on a plane or in front of the TV, he reveals how to understand what we’re tasting and influence what others experience. This is accessible science at its best, fascinating to anyone in possession of an appetite. Crammed with discoveries about our everyday sensory lives, Gastrophysics is a book guaranteed to make you look at your plate in a whole new way.

'A must-read ... satisfying, rich ... loaded with flavour' Sunday Telegraph This book is a celebration of food. By food, Michael Pollan means real, proper, simple food - not the kind that comes in a packet, or has lists of unpronounceable ingredients, or that makes nutritional claims about how healthy it is. More like the kind of food your great-grandmother would recognize. In Defence of Food is a simple invitation to junk the science, ditch the diet and instead rediscover the joys of eating well. By following a few pieces of advice (Eat at a table - a desk doesn't count. Don't buy food where you'd buy your petrol!), you will enrich your life and your palate, and enlarge your sense of what it means to be healthy and happy. It's time to fall in love with food again. For the past twenty years, Michael Pollan has been writing about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: food, agriculture, gardens, drugs, and architecture. His most recent book, about the ethics and ecology of eating, is The Omnivore's Dilemma, named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. He is also the author of The Botany of Desire, A Place of My Own and Second Nature.

This compilation of food design projects illustrates the possibilities new technologies provide to designers and the ways society perceives food.

Experiments with food demonstrate various scientific principles and produce eatable results. Includes beef jerky, cottage cheese, synthetic cola, and pudding.