prediction Archives - Seattle Food Geek

3 Laboratory Devices that will Appear in Your Kitchen by 2020

I think we can agree that by now we all expected to fly around in jetpacks and watch porn through a plug in our skull. Unfortunately, those technologies have not yet become commercial, so we’ll have to make due until modern science can sort out its priorities.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share a little prediction. By the year 2020, you’ll be able to purchase the following items anywhere that also carries a George Foreman Grill. These devices are way out there now – only the most adventurous (and well funded) chefs are using them, but they’re headed to a kitchen near you… along with those jetpacks.

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What the hell is it?
A centrifuge.

What does it do?
It spins little vials of liquid around really, really fast.

What say the white lab coats?
Centrifuges are used for separating out the parts of a liquid by density. Your doctor probably uses one to separate your blood cells from plasma to, um, look at them and stuff.

You put food in that thing?
Although centrifuges have already been used for years in industrial food processing (separating cream from milk, separating sugar crystals from their mother liquor), they’re just now starting to appear in the geekiest restaurant kitchens. Chefs use centrifuges to clarify stocks, sauces and even lime juice. Even the finest mesh strainer is no match for the separating power of the sedimentation principle, so the next time you’re making consommé consider your centrifuge instead of your chinoise.

What the hell is it?
A rotary evaporator.

What does it do?
It extracts solvents from substances. Kind of like a moonshine still, but designed by robots from the future.

What say the white lab coats?
By creating a vacuum inside the glass chamber, the rotary evaporator reduces the boiling point of a compound liquid. Then, through gentle heating and turning, solvents dissolved in the liquid are evaporated and removed.

You put food in that thing?
Imagine being able to extract the essential flavor from just about anything into a highly-concentrated liquid. Sure, you can go buy mint extract or even rosemary extract (if you know where to look), but what about the essential oil of bacon or saffron? Chicago’s famed Alinea restaurant has been using rotovaps to distill the essential oils from herbs, and even chiles – all flavor, no heat. So, when you’re baking cookies and the recipe calls for vanilla extract, don’t turn to the plastic vial from the grocery store; make your own!

XL_triaditem What the hell is it?
It’s a freeze dryer.

What does it do?
It freeze dries, R-tard.

What say the white lab coats?
Freeze drying has all the benefits of freezing, but without those nasty ice crystals. The freeze dryer freezes the materials inside, then creates a vacuum and adds just enough heat so that the water frozen inside the materials converts directly to gas and escapes.

You put food in that thing?
It may not surprise you to hear that freeze dryers are used for culinary applications. After all, this was the space-age piece of technology that brought us Astronaut Ice Cream. But it’s not all about infinite shelf lives and lightweight transportation. Ferran Adrià, often called the best chef in the world, has been freeze drying slices of fruit at his restaurant El Bulli. 10 years from now, when you want to make apple chips and jerky, you won’t be reaching for the dehydrator – you’ll be freeze drying!

Seattle Food Predictions for 2010

headshot square white 1024px 2009 has been a great year for food in Seattle, but with the new year just around the corner, I thought I’d share my ~~guesses~~ insight into what we’ll see in restaurants and home kitchens 2010. Some of these may be national trends, but as Pacific Northwesters, we tend to be the canaries in the coalmine, especially when discussing what we put in our bodies.
As always, there will be a balance of healthy, socially-conscious eating and perverse gluttony (see Bacon Explosion).

Seattle will go sous-vide crazy

The fancy restaurants have already been doing it for years (though, perhaps illegally). But in 2010, I predict that sous-vide preparations will start showing up on restaurant menus everywhere (like The Keg and McCormick & Schmick’s), not just at cutting-edge gastropubs. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, sous-vide describes a cooking method where food is vacu-sealed and heated very slowly (hours or even days) in temperature-controlled water baths. The method lets cooks achieve heavenly textures not achievable with an oven, stove or fry-o-lator. 2009 saw the release of the SousVide Supreme, the world’s first home-use water oven. But at $499, it only appeals to serious food geeks (even I don’t have one yet). I predict that 2010 will give us the “George Foreman Grill of sous-vide”, an afforable, mass-market water oven, complete with late night infomercial.

Homemade Pasta is the new Canvolution

There’s nothing new about homemade pasta. Nor is there anything new about canned foods. Both are oldschool, inexpensive, and very social ways of preparing food. 2009 gave rise to a huge wave of canning parties, covered under the umbrella movement of “Canvolution”. I predict a similar wave of ad-hoc food gatherings next year, and I think homemade pasta could be the recipe of choice. Making pasta – particularly rolling and cutting noodles – is a fun group activity. Plus, dried pasta lasts forever and makes for a great gift (just like canned goods). Stock up on Semolina flour – it’s gonna be a carb-tastic new year!

Sliders Out, Rillettes In

You know sliders are falling out of fashion when they appear on the menu at Jack-In-The-Box. Although the mini-burgers enjoyed their time in the spotlight at almost every restaurant in the city, it’s time for us to move on to the next “it” dish. My prediction: rillettes. Sure, they lack the mass appeal of a very small hamburger, but these spreadable potted meats are a total rustic treat. The first rillette I ever tasted was a creamy little pot of salmon at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in New York. Let me tell you, it left an impression. Although pâté may be hopelessly off the mainstream, I think rillettes have a fighting chance.

Other Predictions, Hopes and Ramblings…

Cupcakes are over. And so are the Pinkberry knockoffs. Please, let’s move on.
Sustainable sushi will be the new norm. With more and more diners checking sustainable seafood watchlists at the dinner table, we can no longer gorge on unagi without social consequences. Bravo to chefs like Hajime at West Seattle’s Mashiko for leading the charge.
Salts on the rise. Look for specialty salts to play a major role in restaurant menus. Oh, and regular table salt is so last decade. If it’s not Chardonnay-smoked, truffle-infused, or from an obscure seaport town in France, I’m not interested.
We get it: bacon is delicious and makes for ironic kitsch. Let’s find a new punch line in 2010. How about blowfish?
Seattle chefs embrace (or at least tinker with) molecular gastronomy. It may not be for everyone, but molecular gastronomy – sciencey food made through extremely geeky methods – is still turning heads around the country. There are a number of brave Seattle chefs are already having fun with science, but in a city with so many artists, I have to believe the best (and weirdest) is yet to come.