Moto Restaurant 945 W. Fulton Market, Chicago, IL 60607 p 312.491.0058 • f 312.491.0068 For generations one specific area of everyday life that has been stubbornly entrenched in tradition, and often rigidly tied to established ideas, is now finally being challenged and pushed into the 21st Century! This of course is the art of food: that daily necessity that most of us consume everyday without much thought (let alone deconstruction) as to how we perceive, smell and taste, and expect our dining experience to be. To this day despite the residual influence of fusion and nouveau cuisine in the late 20th century we still have a general rigidity and conservatism that commands both our cooking schools and our palettes. The very fact that the Blue Book of French Cuisine and numerous other antiquated traditions regarding everything from sauces to appropriate wines for specific foods or dishes still hold sway among a self appointed elite reflects a certain stodginess and rigidity in the field. Although technology has played a great role in the revolution of the kitchen in terms of appliances and time saving gadgetry it has made much more modest advances in areas such as altering and enhancing the flavors, textures and compositions of food. A moto dish with edible paper ... Escher's 'surf n turf' Directly challenging and re-inventing the art of food are a new breed of chefs and a new generation of restaurants that place technology at the forefront of the dining experience. One thinks of how much existing orthodoxy and in turn how many clichéd ideas about various foods, cuisines and their actual origins are the bi-product a human activity and the direct result of interaction, exploration, movement, trade, and the fact that what might now pass as cornerstones of certain cuisines are in fact the hybrid result of the introduction of non-indigenous crops, foodstuffs and staples from one part of the world to another. What immediately comes into mind is how the New World affected the cuisines of the Old World; the idea of Chocolate today being alternately considered Dutch, Belgian or Swiss when its actual origins are in what is now present day Mexico is an obvious example. That the present day Thai or Indian curry can be heated with the Mexican capsicum or hot pepper was unknown to these regions and cuisines before the Spanish and Portuguese spread them throughout South Asia in the 1500s. The Tomato which is the base for numerous sauces in Italian and other cuisines and the now global staple Potato which is often thought of as alternately Irish or Eastern European but is in fact of South American origin, having only caught on in North America and Europe throughout the 1600s (for more then a generation Europeans were reluctant to eat the common potato on the basis that it bore a marked resemblance to a indigenous European tuber that was poisons with the net result that potatoes were initially given to pigs and livestock as feed before being consumed by Europeans well into the 1600s.) Corn, Vanilla, Strawberries, and Pineapples amongst others were unknown outside of the Western Hemisphere until the 1500s. Before becoming too exhaustive my point is that the discovery of a new hemisphere resulted not only in a widening of available food and flavors, but also an early example of globalization, or cross-fertilization if you will, which was the direct result of making available hitherto inaccessible food stuffs and crops and often transplanting them. This in turn resulted in much that in effect was once novel, unusual or new could in time become a basis for an old world (European or Asian) cuisine. While numerous other aspects of our lives have been enhanced, revolutionized and for the most part improved by technology (think of transportation and communication especially,)food preparation has been remarkably immune to the technological advances applied more aggressively in other fields until very recently. Enter Chicago's Chef Homaru Cantu and Moto Restaurant where he licenses his technologies. http://www.cantudesigns.com Making a splash very recently along with a few other notables (include Grant Achatz of Alinea http://www.alinearestaurant.com also in Chicago and Dufrense’s WD 50 in New York http://www.wd-50.com as well as some more seminal influences such as Spain’s Ferran Adrir and London's Heston Blumenthal, and his 'The Fat Duck' http://www.fatduck.co.uk ) All of these forward thinking individuals have espoused, innovated and used technology to great effect: re-inventing, deconstructing and often treading on to entirely new territory. Much more than simply novel combination of existing ideas these trailblazing chefs have freely worked with purees, freeze drying, freezing, using familiar flavors in unfamiliar combinations or familiar flavors in unfamiliar textures. Cantu of Moto in particular has made use of liquid nitrogen, N2O and CO2, in his purées and other food preparations in addition to lasers sometimes being utilized in the actual cooking process. More recently he has received great acclaim for his edible menu and edible illustrated Maki rolls with soy based ink being used on a patented flavored paper like sheet. The futurist tendency has led him to find for instance a better way to cook fish using a polymer based transparent box which he insists is an important tool for what he terms as the most perfectly and evenly cooked fish. Nitrus oxide eating utensil courtesy of deepLABS and Cantu Designs Cantu has been an innovator himself since childhood; his calling could have been mechanical engineering or chemistry. Having a Culinary degree from Le Cordon Blue and partnering with the Chicago based product development firm deepLABS http://www.deeplabs.com has led to numerous examples of technology being married to industrial design with a futurist aesthetic. Being innovative and connecting to a design firm makes Homaro even more of a futurist because deepLABS has taught Homaro about consumer branding, product development process, and the science behind experience design. In this way Homaro has employed the assistance of deepLABS industrial designers and engineers in an effort to directly pursue innovation in terms of cookware, utensils and devices to heat and freeze and dehydrate food. Handheld eating utensils that dispense sauces from the handle or hold aromatics are just the beginning. The oserator. Those edges are sharp! courtesy of deepLABS and Cantu Designs The sensory experience of being an active participant in the actual preparation and presentation (Moto dinners are often blending, mixing or adding various food items and beverages placed in front of them to complete the presentation of a specific course) means that the actual experience is full of surprises visually, aromatically and ultimately to one's taste buds. One wonders what the eventualities might be after this intermingling of technology and food evolves over the course of the next several years or several decades. My analogy about how yesterday's new additions from the Western hemisphere became basic building blocks and staples to numerous cuisines of the Eastern hemisphere and how this led to a widening of flavors for both the Asian and European palette with the inclusion of what were once foods exclusive to the Western hemisphere. It becomes apparent that what we today regard as cutting edge or modernist could at some point over time become an ingrained part of tradition or tomorrow's accepted standard. Deconstructed maki wrapped with edible paper with printed maki from the Internet. With a new breed of (or lack of a better term) eclectic, avant-garde, futurist chefs altering not only the composition, preparation and presentation of food but giving to us new textures, combinations ,flavors and heightening the entire sensory experience of dining we can only imagine what strange and wonderful experiences await the palette of tomorrows diner. David Mazovick manages the school Design Engine Education and often writes for Design-engine.com David can be reached at 'dmazovick [at] proetools.com' Expect to see more in the future on relationships between innovators partnering with product design firms. Want to Learn Some Design Programs? Hit me: Email Dave Mazovick... dmazovick@proetools.com