MeBios Biofluidics Group and the Flemish Primitives
The Flemish Primitives is an annual event that wants to deliver a creative boost for the food industry and gastronomy in Belgium and the world by providing a meeting place for cross fertilisation between the food and beverage industry, gastronomy, the wine world, artists and scientists. The MeBioS division has been involved closely in the Flemish Primitives since its first edition three years ago.
Concept
For this year's event, the MeBioS Biofluidics Group has investigated the science behind a typical Belgian menu, with special emphasis on the visualisation of features that are too fast or too small to observe by the naked eye. The menu was put together in collaboration with chef Kwinten De Paepe of restaurant Trente in Leuven (Belgium) and consisted of a cocktail, a starter, a main course and a desert.
Campari and Soda, Aromatized with Orange
This is a regular cocktail but, before serving (shaken but not stirred), a spray of essential oil is produced by fast compressing the peel of an orange. The oil is set to fire by means of a candle. A high speed camera was used to visualise the ignition of the oil in slow motion. Fire, walk with me!
Espuma of Cucumber and Green Apple
An espuma is a foam that is produced via molecular gastronomy techniques and was popularised by Adrian Ferra of El Bulli. Cucumber and green apple flavours are mixed with gelatine and extruded with a whipped cream canister equipped with gas cartridges. The result is a foam structure with many gas bubbles that are stabilised by the protein.
The foam structure of the espuma was visualised by means of X-ray microtomography. The reconstructed 3-D images were further processed and animated. Take your snorkle and dive (a yellow submarine would work either)!
Eight weeks Aged Blue-White, Slowly Cooked with Belgian Fries
French Fries are the chains that keep the North and South of Belgium together; chocolate is the superglue. Every Belgian believes that French Fries are actually a Belgian invention. Whether this is true is difficult to prove, but Belgian fries are certainly the best in the world (and they match very well with Belgian beer too !). We believe that this is due to the two step cooking process. In a first step, fries are deep fried at 140°C, then they are allowed to rest for a while, and in a second step they are heated at 180°C. This two step process ensures a more uniform cooking profile so that the crust is golden brown while the core is uniformly cooked (as opposed to raw in the one step process).
We have visualised the cooking process by means a finite element simulation of heat conduction (no moisture or fat transport, no phase change). While the results are only qualitative, the simulation clearly shows that the one step process leads to sharp temperature gradients and, presumably, fries that are brown at the outside and still raw at the inside. The two step process would lead to a much more uniform temperature, and, hence, golden brown fries that are well cooked inside. Not convinced ? Have a look at the simulations below.
Apple Pie with Jonagold and Mille-Feuille
The texture of apple is determined to a large extent by its microstructure. We have used synchrotron microfocus computed tomography to visualise the microstructure of apple fruit at a 5 micrometer scale at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble France. The reconstructed images were further processed and animated to allow you to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before ⦠actually, through a pore channel into the core of the fruit!
