Improved ingredients you'd like to conjure into existence?

[Jovidah]

Perhaps a bit of a strange topic but I thought it might be fun. Basically a lot of ingredients we consume today, be they animals or vegetables are already quite far from the original natural form. Vegetables have been bred / crossed to be bigger, plants to become more productive, fruits to be sweeter, etc. Animals have been completely specialized into breeds that maximize putting on meat, producing milk, producing eggs, etc...
Even in just recent history, whether genetical manipulation is involved or not, there's stil lnoticable differences. Brussel sprouts have lost most of their bitterness, and we've been blessed by such awesome inventions as grapeless seeds and farmed salmon with artificially elevated levels of omega 3 fats.

So... what are some things you would like to see in our culinary future, however remote? I'll kick off:
-stemless spinach
-seedless bell peppers
-4 legged chickens

 

[MarcelNL]

the bigger question is; do we benefit from those breeding/crossing changes?
If we eat more veg because it tastes better it might be that we benefit from that, but to what extent is that benefot set off with geting less of the ultimately more important nutriens/trace elements etc in our system?
Even pasteurizing and homogenating milk is not just beneficial in the opinion of some experts (?)

 

[bermuda_chub]

Silk free corn; easy-shuck oysters; barenaked ginger.

 

[dchang21]

i just want the star trek food replicator.

 

[SwampDonkey]

Easy-shuck oysters is a good one! Continued ocean acidification is causing oyster shells to be more brittle than they used to be, and more chippy so you lose that entry "keyhole". It actually makes them harder to shuck.

I vote for spinach without the fuzzy teeth gene.

 

[Michi]

Pomegranates that don't take ten minutes to get the seeds out of.

 

[Just a DK]

Artichokes with just the meat.

 

[ian]

Warm weather or tropical fruit that can grow in the Northeast US. I want a mangosteen tree.

 

[MarcelNL]

Pomegranates that don't take ten minutes to get the seeds out of.

they don't, halve them turn the halve over and bash the heck out of it with a spoon...2 min per halve tops

 

[MarcelNL]

Mangalica pigs that are only cheecks for guanciale

 

[aporigine]

i just want the star trek food replicator.

I want one that is mizu-yaki.

…

What I want is to grow a watermelon that, when I slice it open, has a boneless A8 ribeye inside. Wall to wall.

Veal-rabi and foie-grapefruit while we’re at it. King Crabgrass.

The reductio ad ****yeah (circling back to the replicator) is the capacity to 3-d print a rib roast, a great chunk of bluefin tuna, poached kakapo eggs or a foie gras of some endangered yet sublime fowl entirely from vegan feedstocks. Yeast, algae, vat-grown in orbit (because planets are our cradle but not our destiny.)

Cheaper and cleaner than the real stuff, and indistinguishable from wild to serious food experts.

That’s the day I stop killing to eat.

 

[Michi]

they don't, halve them turn the halve over and bash the heck out of it with a spoon...2 min per halve tops

I’ve been cutting them into quarters and peeling them under water. It works and gets rid of the pith, but it’s slow.

 

[ptolemy]

Perhaps a bit of a strange topic but I thought it might be fun. Basically a lot of ingredients we consume today, be they animals or vegetables are already quite far from the original natural form. Vegetables have been bred / crossed to be bigger, plants to become more productive, fruits to be sweeter, etc. Animals have been completely specialized into breeds that maximize putting on meat, producing milk, producing eggs, etc...
Even in just recent history, whether genetical manipulation is involved or not, there's stil lnoticable differences. Brussel sprouts have lost most of their bitterness, and we've been blessed by such awesome inventions as grapeless seeds and farmed salmon with artificially elevated levels of omega 3 fats.

So... what are some things you would like to see in our culinary future, however remote? I'll kick off:
-stemless spinach
-seedless bell peppers
-4 legged chickens

1. Caviar that doesn't require killing the fish (I know there is a method that doesn't, but it's not exactly a good one)
2. Being able to cultivate more mushrooms easier
3. Parma and similar types of that or cheese that don't require 1-2 years of aging, same for other very slowly developed foods (I am sure wine, and other spirits fall into this)

Many other things

 

[aporigine]

1. Caviar that doesn't require killing the fish (I know there is a method that doesn't, but it's not exactly a good one)
2. Being able to cultivate more mushrooms easier
3. Parma and similar types of that or cheese that don't require 1-2 years of aging, same for other very slowly developed foods (I am sure wine, and other spirits fall into this)

Many other things

2) God yes. No chanterelles in the desert.

 

[Jovidah]

the bigger question is; do we benefit from those breeding/crossing changes?
If we eat more veg because it tastes better it might be that we benefit from that, but to what extent is that benefot set off with geting less of the ultimately more important nutriens/trace elements etc in our system?
Even pasteurizing and homogenating milk is not just beneficial in the opinion of some experts (?)

Yeah it depends. I agree that not all 'improvement' has really been beneficial. A lot of breeds of crops and animals have become far more productive, but nutritional value and flavor has certainly gone down accordingly; basically the increase in production is mostly just more water.

But for example making stuff seedless is a nice way to improve the experience and ease of use for the consumer that I can imagine wouldn't necessarily change the other variables.

I haven't drank enough raw milk to really be able to judge but on cheese the difference is definitly very noticable in the flavor (using pasteurized milk you lose a lot of the flavor and nuance in the final product).

 

[Jovidah]

Mangalica pigs that are only cheecks for guanciale

Interesting you bring up pigs. I think it's a good example of where we've really gone in the wrong direction. Most modern day breeds have been largely optimized to grow very large very quickly while producing mostly very lean meat. Most of the intramuscular fat has been bred out as a result of all the fat=bad propaganda we had for a few decades. As a result most pork is just incredibly dissapointing these days.

 

[Vertigo]

-4 legged chickens

Oh my lord that's the dream right there.

i just want the star trek food replicator.

The Fifth Element thing where you put a capsule in the microwave, then 1 second later have a giant roast chicken dinner.

 

[Jovidah]

1. Caviar that doesn't require killing the fish (I know there is a method that doesn't, but it's not exactly a good one)
2. Being able to cultivate more mushrooms easier
3. Parma and similar types of that or cheese that don't require 1-2 years of aging, same for other very slowly developed foods (I am sure wine, and other spirits fall into this)

Many other things

Interesting you bring up mushrooms. Apparently even cultivating the simple button mushroom was a challenge that took many centuries to solve before it became a reality. There's actually some people experimenting to try and cultivate truffles. Who knows, eventually they might pull it off - and completely kill the market.

I'm not sure if there is a shortcut for quick curing meat (apart from nitrites), but there are shortcuts to speed up the ageing of cheese. We call them 'snelrijper' (quick-ripener) here. They're actually not all that uncommon - just usually not advertised as such. The most famous example here in the Netherlands is 'Old Amsterdam' - which isn't old cheese at all. It's not exactly 100% the same as a traditionally ripened cheese but it's not bad either. Plenty of people might actually prefer it because you get an 'older' taste with a 'younger' texture.

 

[nopomo]

Warm weather or tropical fruit that can grow in the Northeast US. I want a mangosteen tree.

Paw-paw tastes like a tropical fruit and is hardy to zone 5. Some figs, too.

 

[oolor13]

Paw-paw tastes like a tropical fruit and is hardy to zone 5.

My former neighbor gave me one paw-paw sapling that's growing nicely, but I learned that you need a male and female pair to get fruit. Now I have to figure out which one I have.

 

[Rangen]

Full-flavored tomatoes with a year-round growing season, that are just firm enough to withstand shipping when they are at their peak ripeness.

 

[ptolemy]

Interesting you bring up mushrooms. Apparently even cultivating the simple button mushroom was a challenge that took many centuries to solve before it became a reality. There's actually some people experimenting to try and cultivate truffles. Who knows, eventually they might pull it off - and completely kill the market.

I'm not sure if there is a shortcut for quick curing meat (apart from nitrites), but there are shortcuts to speed up the ageing of cheese. We call them 'snelrijper' (quick-ripener) here. They're actually not all that uncommon - just usually not advertised as such. The most famous example here in the Netherlands is 'Old Amsterdam' - which isn't old cheese at all. It's not exactly 100% the same as a traditionally ripened cheese but it's not bad either. Plenty of people might actually prefer it because you get an 'older' taste with a 'younger' texture.

ya, you can do it fast, but the flavor and texture is not there, i.e 90% of american cheeses... i meant fast but retaining it...

 

[Jovidah]

ya, you can do it fast, but the flavor and texture is not there, i.e 90% of american cheeses... i meant fast but retaining it...

Yeah the majority of factory cheese is bland tasteless crap, but some of the quick-riping stuff can actually be half decent. Basically they screw with the starter cultures to get the cheese to ripen faster... but they are still aged. So for example Old Amsterdam isn't actually 'old'; it tries to imitate an 18 month cheese with just 8 months of ripening, but many people seem to still quite like it. I don't know if it really exists in the US though; even here in the Netherlands they're not super common, and brands that use the process generally prefer not to advertise it.

The main downside is that the quick ripening cheeses tend to have a bit of a ... typical taste. It's not that they taste bad, but they do taste slightly different; once you know it you'll pick up on it. On the flipside though, the texture is also more creamy for a given taste, so they actually make really good gratin cheeses. The best example of this is Prima Donna, which actually leans towards Parmiggiano in flavor while still having the texture and melting behavior of a creamy Gouda.

 

[TB_London]

Shop bought but tastes home grown would be ace

Foods that taste as good as the nostalgic memory you try to recreate

A way of keeping food at peak eating condition without spoiling - unripe, unripe, unripe, unripe, ripe, overripe, spoiled

On the topic of 4 legged chicken - I’d go chicken with oysters the size of breasts

 

[concernedparent]

Easy peel pineapples that ripen after being picked.

 

[sansho]

i just want the star trek food replicator.

i was thinking the same thing. and here's my food replicator fan fiction...

imagine guys working for the federation traveling the world(s) and scanning in massive collections of fruit, berry, and veggie specimens. next, based on predictive models, the most promising specimens are presented to tasting panels and rated for quality verification.

imagine replicating a carton of SSSS-rank blueberries. not all identical berries, mind you, but all of them would be sweet, tart, and packed with intricate, attention-arresting flavor. each berry could be replicated from the specimen catalog, or if you have a preferred flavor profile, a template could be used with key flavor component concentrations varied along some distribution.

imagine having an on-demand library at your fingertips of the fanciest fuggen fruits ever witnessed.

"guys, have you tried blueberry PX93747.00284 in the Fed84 station catalog? unreal"

yeah. i just wrote that up after eating a lackluster pint of berries from costco.

 

[Delat]

Brisket that's all point, no flat.

Asparagus without the woody part at the bottom.

Seedless raspberries and blackberries.

 

[aporigine]

Shop bought but tastes home grown would be ace

Foods that taste as good as the nostalgic memory you try to recreate

A way of keeping food at peak eating condition without spoiling - unripe, unripe, unripe, unripe, ripe, overripe, spoiled

On the topic of 4 legged chicken - I’d go chicken with oysters the size of breasts

I knew a chick with breasts the size of oys — oh look! Pavement!!
Lotsa four-legged chickens out this way, but they’re protected.

 

[rmrf]

i was thinking the same thing. and here's my food replicator fan fiction...

If you trust the Maquis, even replicators in star trek are worse than real food (corn as sweet as a baby's smile, Sisko grows his own vegetables for a staff dinner). My head-cannon is that the reason we see so many people eating replicated food is that we are looking either at military installations where people will compromise on food quality for convenience or so few people have ever tasted real food that no one knows to miss it. But, if that replicator you described existed, I would drown myself in strawberries and peaches.

I'd love pomelo that were easier to peel or segment or with membranes thin enough to pleasently eat.

 

[M1k3]

Potatoes and Avocados that don't oxidize being exposed to air.