Exhibition | Food Think Tank tries Lakewater, Insects in Quest for “Perfect Taste”

“Our intention was to create a vital space where on one hand the viewers will be able to observe the process behind creating a restaurant and the other where the Food Think Tank members will show trials of their work with descriptive info about their experiments,” said project manager Beata Bartecka.

“We wanted to show all the ceramic and culinary samples, which otherwise would have been left hidden in basements or kitchen facilities,” she added.

The members of the collective were expected to push themselves as individuals in creating the fringe experience. Passive attitudes during the process were not tolerated. I imagine this same kind of buy-in extended to the audience as well. The experiment culminated with a four-hour meal in an underground dining space. With fare such as (distilled) lake water and tacos made out of insect flour, the audience had to push themselves. For example, one of the only menu items I immediately recognized was a version of the “century egg,” a Chinese delicacy made by preserving an egg for weeks in a mix of things that include clay, salt and quicklime. If one’s familiarity with the food begins and ends with such a dish, I can only imagine how deep the rabbit hole went with the collective’s experiments.

Bill Rodgers is a Contributing Editor at CFile.

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