-ify
textural food in space
Project in collaboration with NASA
Supervisor Per Liljeqvist, Lecturer at Lund University
Larry Toups, Lead Space Architect at NASA
December 2016 / Houston, USA & Lund, Sweden
This project is to create a collection of handy tools that offer the food different textures in no second. Of course, you can achieve those textures by fancy cooking techniques but I want the food preparation time to be minimum. Since astronauts probably only have 5 minutes but 3 hours to fix a meal. This could also apply to us, busy people, nowadays. I don’t want it to be very high tech but everyone can have this set of tools at home. In addition, I don’t want it to be multifunctional, they have to be separated and just do one perfect job. They have their own names because of different jobs. I call the collection -ify.
On long-duration missions, food becomes more important from a psychological perspective.
Food and mealtimes can play a primary role in psychological-social benefits, such as reducing stress and boredom or promoting unity of prolonged space missions. Going to Mars will be a bigger challenge because of its long period of time. The idea of a sustainable food system is something that experts are working on, however, creating more possibilities for the dining experience is also important. Most foods decreased in acceptability when they were repeatedly consumed. You just get tired of it, even though it might be your favorite dish.
Hence, my project is to give the food more possibilities by offering different textures. Instead of bringing 5 different dishes made of the same ingredient, the astronauts can just bring one and create what they want by using the tools.
At the beginning of this project, we formed a small group of people that were into food. We tried to do some experiments that were related to food but not necessarily to space food. Our initial question was, in what ways do we eat and why? By trying the opposite of what we do today, that is eating without a traditional table, to see how it changed our behavior. And also imagine how we would eat if we were astronauts in microgravity.
Texture is just as important as flavor, and it really has a big impact on the way flavor is perceived. Many times, the reason we eat has less to do with sustenance and more to do with taste. After seasoning, texture is the most important element of cooking. For example, when you see aubergine on the menu, you might fear it would be flaccid or oily as they usually are. However, the adjective "crispy" makes everything appear as safe and crunchy as chips. Texture affects how food is broken down in the mouth and how flavor is released. So I did a little "KALLES Kaviar" experiment to try out the taste of different textures.
In the book "Food Texture and Viscosity, Concept and Measurement", Malcolm Bourne from Cornell University, pointed out that Crunchy, creamy, and chewy are noted as the 3 most relished textures.
Also, there is a chapter in the book "Constant Craving" about analyzing our food cravings which I found interesting. For example, if you are craving something crunchy, your core feelings are either anger or tension. Variations of these two feelings include resentment, feeling betrayed, overwhelmed, used, bitterness, and irritability. If it’s creamy, then your core feelings are either fear or shame. Variations of these feelings include anxiety, embarrassment, insecurity, the impostor syndrome, feeling unworthy, and guilt. If it’s chewy, then your core feeling is a combination of either fear or shame mixed with either anger or tension. Variations of these combination feelings include jealousy (fear and anger); confusion (tension with shame); dread that something awful is about to happen (fear with tension); and self-loathing (anger with shame).
This is like a mirror for you, so you can see which emotion is troubling you the greatest. Also, it would be a method for astronauts to be aware of their emotions during heavy duties.
Crunchify = ( thinly sliced X ) dry heat
Creamify = ( mash X ) stir
Chewify = [ blend ( X + g ) ] cool
