300874 Fri Sep 23 05:19:26 -0700 2005 5 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1674822 Some time ago I read a piece in the NY Times about a chef who was doing dishes with printed and decorated edible materials. Can anybody lead me to the article or more information about this topic. Thanks Fri Sep 23 05:19:26 -0700 2005 0 bgorton 1 1674823 I have no idea of the NYT article you refer to, however a long long time ago had done some research on google with regard to rice paper (edible/unedible) and here are some excerpts from that: (disclaimer/note: I have no connection other than research related as mentioned above. Info being provided includes grammatical/spelling errors): QQ http://www.vietnamhost.com/kphuong_food/english/ products1.html#ricepaper TRANSPARENT RICE PAPER (cover of Vietnamese spring roll dish). Transparent rice paper is the name of the product used in the dish of (name disappeared as it was probably written in invisible ink -too light to discern) A special dish among the traditional dishes of Vietnam. Transparent rice paper is made from rice and is thin like a sheet of paper and is used to cover spring rolls. Vietnamese rice paper have the white, transparent and thin characteristic which was best, that is secret key of delicious taste. Use this transparent rice paper according to the instruction of the receipt in order to roll the meat, shrimp and vegetable mix in Rice Paper - "Spring Roll dish". Eat with Vietnamese fish sauce or hot pepper soy. The products was presented with "en éventail" shape (1/4 circle ), which should be cut from the round transparent rice paper with diameter 31cm, 22cm, and 16cm. Please follow the receipt's instructions. When using transparent rice paper, pick out one by one and dry on wet towel in order to soften the round transparent rice paper. A to Z of Rice - http://www.riceassociation.org.uk/about/pqrs.htm Rice Paper is not made from Rice at all, but from the pith of the 'rice paper tree', a small Asian shrub. Rice Paper is a thin edible paper used to line baking trays, in the East it is used for delicate paintings. A coarse rice paper can be made from rice flour and this is used to wrap spring rolls and other Asian foods. Rice Paper and Ink - http://www.natashascafe.com/html/rice_paper.html Our Rice paper is "made by hand" in small quantities and completely acid free. Though known as "rice paper" most of the Chinese paper is actually made of bamboo pulp which is an essential ingredient in the creation of the magic of Chinese and Japanese calligraphy and ink painting. Each roll contains 12 sheets of paper each measuring 13" by 35". UQ Hope the above is helpful to your quest. Best Wishes / Amin Fri Sep 23 08:42:26 -0700 2005 1674822 0 Amin (London Foodie ''OrientRice@aol.com'') 1 1674824 I can't find the link but it was a sushi chef who basically found away to either scan or use laser jet technology to print images on edible rice paper. The articles had picture of some of his creations. I know it was on one of these boards but for the life of me can't remember which one. Maybe smeone else can find it. Fri Sep 23 08:46:19 -0700 2005 1674822 0 foodiex2 1 1674825 You're thinking of chef Homaro Cantu of Moto (in Chicago). The link to the NYT article is below. Scott Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/technology/circuits/03chef.html?ex=1265086800&en=86fc34262c705d47&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland Fri Sep 23 09:17:04 -0700 2005 1674822 0 Scott 1 1674854 Thank you all for the replies. Fri Sep 23 22:29:58 -0700 2005 1674822 0 bgorton 1 1675174 It was a NYT article that ran Feb 3 2005. Since it is now in the cost archive, here is the text form of the article. ---- When the Sous-Chef Is an Inkjet By DAVID BERNSTEIN Published: February 3, 2005 HOMARO CANTU'S maki look a lot like the sushi rolls served at other upscale restaurants: pristine, coin-size disks stuffed with lumps of fresh crab and rice and wrapped in shiny nori. They also taste like sushi, deliciously fishy and seaweedy. But the sushi made by Mr. Cantu, the 28-year-old executive chef at Moto in Chicago, often contains no fish. It is prepared on a Canon i560 inkjet printer rather than a cutting board. He prints images of maki on pieces of edible paper made of soybeans and cornstarch, using organic, food-based inks of his own concoction. He then flavors the back of the paper, which is ordinarily used to put images onto birthday cakes, with powdered soy and seaweed seasonings. At least two or three food items made of paper are likely to be included in a meal at Moto, which might include 10 or more tasting courses. Even the menu is edible; diners crunch it up into a bowl of gazpacho, creating Mr. Cantu's version of alphabet soup. Sometimes he seasons the menus to taste like the main courses. Recently, he used dehydrated squash and sour cream powders to match a soup entree. He also prepares edible photographs flavored to fit a theme: an image of a cow, for example, might taste like filet mignon. ''We can create any sort of flavor on a printed image that we set our minds to,'' Mr. Cantu said. The connections need not stop with things ordinarily thought of as food. ''What does M.C. Escher's 'Relativity' painting taste like? That's where we go next.'' Food critics have cheered, comparing Mr. Cantu to Salvador Dali and Willy Wonka for his peculiarly playful style of cooking. More precisely, he is a chef in the Buck Rogers tradition, blazing a trail to a space-age culinary frontier. Mr. Cantu wants to use technology to change the way people perceive (and eat) food, and he uses Moto as his laboratory. ''Gastronomy has to catch up to the evolution in technology,'' he said. ''And we're helping that process happen.'' Tucked among warehouses and lofts in the Chicago meatpacking district, Moto attracts a trend-conscious crowd. Some guests leave scratching their heads; others walk away spellbound by a glimpse of Mr. Cantu's vision of the future of food. William Mericle, 41, described recent meal at Moto as ''dinner theater on your plate.'' He did not care for all 20 small dishes he sampled, but he said he liked most of them. He found Mr. Cantu's imagination appealing. ''He's mad-scientist-meets-gourmet-chef,'' he said. ''Like Christopher Lloyd from 'Back to the Future,' if he were more interested in food than time travel.'' Mr. Cantu believes that restaurant-goers, particularly diners who are willing to spend $240 per person for a meal (the cost of a 20-course tasting menu with wine at Moto) are often disappointed by conventional dining experiences. ''They're sick and tired of steak and eggs,'' he said. ''They're tired of just going to a restaurant, having food placed on the table, having it cleared, and there's no more mental input into it other than the basic needs of a caveman, just eat and nourish.'' At Moto, he said, ''there's so much more we can do.'' Mr. Cantu is experimenting with liquid nitrogen, helium and superconductors to make foods levitate. And while many chefs speak of buying new ovens or refrigerators, he wants to invest in a three-dimensional printer to make physical prototypes of his inventions, which he now painstakingly builds by hand. The 3-D printer could function as a cooking device, creating silicone molds for pill-sized dishes flavored, say, like watermelon, bacon and eggs or even beef Bourguignon, he said, and he could also make edible molds out of cornstarch. He also plans to buy a class IV laser to create dishes that are ''impossible through conventional means.'' (A class IV laser, the highest grade under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's classification system, projects high-powered beams and is typically used for surgery or welding.) Mr. Cantu said he might use the laser to burn a hole through a piece of sashimi tuna, cooking the fish thoroughly inside but leaving its exterior raw. He said he would also use the laser to create ''inside out'' bread, where the crust is baked inside the loaf and the doughy part is the outer surface. ''We'll be the first restaurant on planet Earth to use a class IV laser to cook food,'' he said with a grin. He is testing a hand-held ion-particle gun, which he said is for levitating food. So far he has zapped only salt and sugar, but envisions one day making whole meals float before awestruck diners. The son of a fabricating engineer, Mr. Cantu got his start as a science geek. ''From a very young age, I liked to take apart things,'' said Mr. Cantu, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest. ''All of my Christmas gifts would wind up in a million pieces. I actually recall taking apart my dad's lawnmower three times to understand how combustible engines work.'' When he was 12, he took a job as a cook and busboy, mainly to earn money for remote-controlled airplanes and helicopters that he then took apart. But the restaurant business rubbed off on Mr. Cantu, and after high school he attended culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu in Portland, Ore. A series of jobs followed, nearly 50 in all, Mr. Cantu said. He worked as a stagiaire, or intern, in some of the top kitchens around the country, eventually talking his way into a job at Charlie Trotter's, a well-known restaurant in Chicago. He became a sous-chef there before opening Moto last year. Mr. Cantu has filed applications for patents on more than 30 inventions, including a cooking box that steams fish. The tiny opaque box, about three inches square, is made of a superinsulating polymer. Mr. Cantu heats the box to 350 degrees in an oven and places a raw piece of Pacific sea bass inside it. A server then delivers it to diners, who can watch the fish cook. Assisting Mr. Cantu with what he calls his '''Star Wars' stuff'' is DeepLabs, a small Chicago product-development and design consultancy. Mr. Cantu meets weekly with the crew of aerospace and mechanical engineers, programmers and product designers at DeepLabs for brainstorming sessions. ''I tell them I want to make food float, I want to make it disappear, I want to make it reappear, I want to make the utensils edible, I want to make the plates, the table, the chairs edible,'' Mr. Cantu said, ''I ask them, what do I need to do that?'' Ryan Alexander, an industrial graphic designer at DeepLabs, said he and his colleagues at the company, which has designed more conventional products for Motorola and Home Depot, are enthusiastic about Mr. Cantu: ''We don't say no,'' he said. Using engineering, graphics and animation software, DeepLabs designers have begun to turn Mr. Cantu's dreams into realties. They have created mockups of his all-in-one utensil, a combination fork, knife and spoon, as well as utensils with pressurized handles that release aromatic vapors. The latest prototype is a utensil with a disposable, self-heating silicone handle that can be filled with liquefied or pureed foods. A carbon-dioxide-based charge heats the food (soup, for example), and the diner squeezes the handle to release it onto a spoon. Mr. Cantu envisions many applications for such a utensil, from military meals to cookouts. Mr. Cantu said his experiments and kitchen inventions could one day revolutionize how, where and what we eat. ''This will tap into something,'' he said. ''Maybe a mission to Mars, I don't know. Maybe we're going to find a way to grow something in a temperature that liquid nitrogen operates at. Then we could grow food on Pluto. There are possibilities to this that we can't fathom yet. And to not do it is far more consequential than just to say, hey, we're going to stick with our steak and eggs today.'' Thu Sep 29 23:23:59 -0700 2005 1674822 0 Food Tyrant