3D printed food-sculptures

Cornell University and the French Culinary Institute are collaborating to modify 3D printers to output delicious, detailed, edible objects. They puree materials such as "chocolate, cheese and hummus to scallops, turkey, and celery" and feed them to at Fab@Home open-source 3D printer. Shown here is a tiny Space Shuttle made of ground scallops and cheese.

"It lets you do complex geometries with food that you could never do by hand," said Jeffrey Lipton, a researcher and graduate student at the lab..."
"...I can imagine creating really interesting textures using meat with the same technique," [Dave Arnold, director of culinary technology at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan] told Spark. "Imagine [a food] almost like a meatloaf that absorbs sauce like a sponge. That is cool -- much cooler to me than printing some ersatz steak."

3D printers create edible objects

Printing Food (Cornell University)

(Image: Cornell University/French Culinary Institute)

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brassandlace

If this takes off, those Food Network challenges are going to get a lot more interesting.

I’m a little iffy on the meat ones, though.
Anonymous

What? No ersatz cabbage butterfly?
Anonymous

man so awesome. now anybody can make their own cereal brand!
AlmostLucy

I have seen the future and it is delicious.
morkl

Stuff humanity has accomplished:
[ ] Cure cancer
[ ] Peace on earth
[X] 3D Cheese Printer

Now let’s get them bacon printers up and running; the other things can wait!
george57l

I bet Heston Blumethal will have one in his kitchen the moment he hears about this – it is right up his street, judging what he gets up to with his creative cookery on UK tv.
Anonymous

If God wanted us to print-out bacon, he would have given pigs lasers for eyes.
Anonymous

from the french culinary institute tech blog Cooking Issues:

Fantastic Stochastic Masa: Finally a Good 3-D Food Printing Application

http://www.cookingissues.com/2011/01/24/fantastic-stochasic-masa-finally-a-good-3-d-food-printing-application/
woid

I guess it’s one way to get the kiddies to eat their food.

What’s next? Vitamins shaped like the Flintstones?
Deidzoeb

Michael Pollan’s eyes are rolling in his head. His yummy, yummy eyes.