Cuisine-in-a-can

Okay, I suppose someone was going to do this at some point. For any number of reasons.

Wired reports that a grad student at a London university has created a 12-course dinner-in-a-can. Twelve foods embalmed in gelatin & entombed in a can. Chris Godfrey says it’s part of his investigation into today’s “bombastic consumerism”, but I’m betting he really did it to see if he could.

From the top down they include:

Selection of local cheeses

Pickled Kobe beef

Ricotta ravioli

Shiitake mushrooms

Halibut poached in truffle butter

It goes on and on, through the main course, rib-eye steak with grilled mustard greens; and it ends with a canelé and hazelnut latte.

Leaving aside the issue that a latte is not an appropriate after-dinner coffee, I guess Chris Godfrey has covered all the major food groups, although covering them in gelatin just makes them icky.

(Hey—you ever eaten an aspic by mistake? You’d be scarred for life, too.)

I’m really seeing this as a guy thing—can’t think of any woman who’d spend hours and hours preparing expensive ingredients and layering them in a can, knowing no one’s ever going to eat the result.

Me—I can’t even get my head around the turducken. Plus, if you’ve ever tried to get the jellied cranberry sauce out of the can whole at Thanksgiving, you know this would be a bitch-and-a-half to extrude onto your plate without smooshing it.

But I bet Godfrey gets his degree off this. His committee’s probably all-male.