Dodos, eagles and meal worms.

This Sunday saw the Experimental Food Society's annual exhibition, at the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane.


I think pictures will do a better job of explaining than I will...

Curly-Wurly Eiffel Tower

Not-gingerbread cottage

Dodo. His feathers looked strokeable but were entirely sugar!

Equally sugary eagle.

Sugar flowers

Levitating table (look closely...)

I did a fantastically bad job at making a note of who made each thing, but a full list society members can be found here.


My favourite bit, though, was The Gastronaut, Stefan Gates. (I'd not heard of him before, but apparently he does stuff for the BBC.) He was offering an Extraordinary Snack Box (for a very reasonable £6.95) and then did a fifteen minute talk on what it contained.

Extraordinary Snack Box

And what was in it? Well...


- A bum sandwich. Yes. You had to sit on it. It demonstrated that food generally tastes better at body temperature. And meant there could be lots of references to bumming your sandwich.


- Noodle salad with jellyfish. Really delicious, although that was mainly due to the dressing... Jellyfish doesn't have much flavour, but is low calorie and full of protein and fibre. And manages to be both crunchy and squishy at the same time.


- Pan-fried lambs' testicles. Served on couscous and tasting just like little meatballs. Not surprisingly, the girls found these easier to eat than the boys... 


- Sweeties with a packet of cochineal bugs, to show where the pink colour comes from. 


- Gold and silver wrapped sausages and a packet of Space Dust... just for fun, and to remind us that food should be exciting!


- Mealworms with yoghurt and honey. (Except we had to call the honey 'bee vomit'.) This was the hardest thing for me to eat... my mum used to feed her birds meal worms! But they didn't have any particular flavour so once they were in your mouth if felt mostly like eating yoghurt and muesli. Insect protein is much, much cheaper to produce than animal so it might be something we all find ourselves eating more of. 

Oh, and a carrot trombone.  Mostly just to make a stupid noise...