Gourmet chefs today have already taken food preparation to its highest form, and now enjoy improvising by presenting the food you order as a 3-dimensional art form on the plate. "Cooking vertically", they say.
I think we're on the cusp of truly four-dimensional food; food that moves and changes over time. I'm not talking about live animals. I mean things like the following:
Food which blossoms decoratively on the plate due to internal frozen parts which expand as they thaw (perhaps helped by a pre-heated section of the plate or the table); for example, a garnish which, rather than just sitting there, does something eventually.
Plates containing mini conveyor belts which move the items on your plate around in decorative flower patterns; the colors merge together creating a moire (strobe lighting in the restaurant or built into the place setting could also enhance the effect)
Food which is like a choose-your-own-adventure plate; the attentive waiter replaces each ingredient with a new ingredient as you eat them, leading you down a path of exploration. For example, the plate starts out with just two ingredients A and B, if you eat B then you get C, if you then eat A, you get D. The ingredients are deftly chosen so you never have incompatible ones.
Molten chocolate cakes (a common dessert that's like a cupcake but filled with hot chocolate syrup) - but this one will slowly leak and erupt by itself, like a volcano, instead of you cutting into it, due to clever construction which vents the steam pressure inside;
Best of all, the new genre of food will be sure to spawn some neat new rules of etiquette. For example "Never eat any food which has not yet turned orange or exploded and which is heading from right to left", or always eat one entire ingredient at a time during the choose-your-own-adventure phase.
Thank you.-- phundug, May 06 2009 Chinese Blossoming Tea. http://www.goldente...sqZoCFQNaFQodrD8i2AThey unfold in the hot water over time. [Zuzu, May 07 2009] Ejaculating pudding http://www.channel4...oman-feast_p_8.htmlI made sure to include the search-term 'Heston' when I googled for this. [Loris, May 07 2009] Food Fister! Food_20Fister!"Sit Down!! at the dinner table Jeremy; remember what happened to poor Aunt Mabel that time..." [Loris, May 07 2009] live whole squid http://www.youtube....watch?v=9NE3NPytch4 [EdwinBakery, Mar 21 2011] Dancing squid dish http://www.youtube....watch?v=dxQmOR_QLfQwarning: very morbid and disturbing [EdwinBakery, Mar 21 2011] tentacles cut live from squid still writhe http://www.youtube....watch?v=S7hnOjU1Rb4squirmy writhing wormy [EdwinBakery, Mar 21 2011] bonito flakes http://www.youtube....watch?v=1TyyDMOz0n4flakes writhe naturally because of rising water vapor [EdwinBakery, Mar 21 2011] blossoming tea http://www.youtube....watch?v=w_j3ThSg068 [EdwinBakery, Mar 21 2011] fondue fountain http://www.youtube....watch?v=p9faj6oLAaw [EdwinBakery, Mar 21 2011] hypercube by basheba grossman http://www.shapeway...ercube_b___26_.htmla model of a hypercube. [davey l, Sep 10 2011] Volcanic Enchiladas Volcanic_20Enchiladassimilar to the described molten chocolate cakes, but in a different medium [swimswim, Sep 11 2011] 2x as horrifying as that squid video! http://www.youtube....watch?v=BsAe08mEHk0That squid wasn't even "alive" this octopus totally is. [DIYMatt, Sep 12 2011] It's about time.-- normzone, May 06 2009 ...and taste.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 06 2009 Custard powder could be used to create explosions so you could potentially fire your croutons into your soup.-- Aristotle, May 06 2009 There is a chef (in Detroit I think) who blindfolds his diners and makes his creations levetate all whilst some music that accompanies/compliments is played to them though headphones. Good for a first date with a fat chick.-- aussiedigger, May 06 2009 Hyperbun-- placid_turmoil, May 06 2009 Brussel sprouts that regress.-- skinflaps, May 06 2009 Wow! great+ so inspired I want 4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie!-- xandram, May 06 2009 Maybe you could have genetically mutated tiny dogs and ponies that jump through a flaming hoop into a frying vat in the center of the table.-- nomocrow, May 07 2009 [nomocrow], it would be cheaper to use cockroaches for that application as they are already about the right size ...-- Aristotle, May 07 2009 Heston Blumenthal has already baked (Boom Boom!) your volcano cake. Only he called it his ejaculating pudding. See link - the recipe is much sought after. (Who are these people trying to kid - these puddings were finely engineered devices.)
In fact he's done quite a bit of this sort of thing - I remember vibrating jellies, and people commenting in the link are referencing gutted, still moving fish, which is apparently a Japanese fad (rather cruel, I'd say).-- Loris, May 07 2009 Another example of 4-D food, though somewhat costly, would be to serve tossed salad in one of those free-falling airplanes they use to train astronauts to practice weightlessness. This would cause all the pieces of salad to fall in slow motion onto the plate, just like in TV commercials.-- phundug, Mar 15 2011 Doesn't ice cream and anything served en-flambe already meet this criteria?
(One could make an argument about change in temperature already, or cereal getting soggy, but that's probably beside the point.)-- MechE, Mar 15 2011 I like this. My mother-in-law makes a soup that turns into a pie. Actually, it's gravy that develops a skin. Anyway, I like this. [+]-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 15 2011 Fruitcakes! Buy bump dump tissssh!-- Zimmy, Mar 16 2011 Popcorn could be adapted for this: the popped kernels could be dropped individually from the ceiling into your waiting bowl (or hands), with strategically placed air flows guiding and slowing down the falling puffs to easily catchable speeds.
Or make a huge popcorn whirlwind! Not liable for personal injuries or choking hazard.-- phundug, Mar 16 2011 Japanese squid tentacles cut from the squid still writhing - they even cling to things with their suckers, japanese dried skipjack tuna flakes - called bonito- writhe when placed on something floating floating in hot soup because of the steam rising, , make a cake in shape of volcano, make a depression on top and place in a little tinfoil cup and pour in evaporated milk with red dye and then drop in a chunk of dry ice- the dry ice bubbles in the milk and the visible condensate vapor looks like smoke-- EdwinBakery, Mar 18 2011 Fondue, maybe? - - also you can present a soup or something with cotton candy on the side, and if someone wants to sweeten it he can place in the cotton candy which melts into the liquid, works well because a seemingly large amount of cotton candy represents only a small amount of sugar-- EdwinBakery, Mar 18 2011 Fondue fountains-- EdwinBakery, Mar 18 2011 Whistle lollipops, , food served still sizzling? Like fajitas at Chili's, , hibachi restaurants where the chef throws food for you to catch and plays jokes on you-- EdwinBakery, Mar 18 2011 well, one example is hypercubed chopped steak. please ask God.-- davey l, Aug 26 2011 //Food which changes and moves in all four dimensions//
Baked. "Breakfast Excreter" says it all.-- AusCan531, Aug 26 2011 wel,l here is the hypercube by basheba grossman. one can check on them on her site and by asking God.-- davey l, Sep 10 2011 Forks at the ready! Don't let the appetizer escape this time!-- KAGE, Sep 12 2011 Surely if food wasn't already four-dimensional you'd have to eat it rather quickly?-- nineteenthly, Sep 12 2011 I think that's what happens in the Large Pina Collider (referenced elsewhere on a 4-dimensional version of this site) where pieces of fruit are accelerated into one another, and the resulting impacts examined for short-lived evidence of bizarre and exotic berries.-- zen_tom, Sep 13 2011 My wife's eaten fish served in Japan which was so fresh it was still twitching on the plate. [21Q] - don't worry, the fish isn't still alive at this point.-- hippo, Sep 13 2011 There's also a version of this site which has that in a different set of five- and six-dimensional coordinates.-- nineteenthly, Sep 13 2011 //don't worry, the fish isn't still alive at this point.// But those poor octopi were [link]-- DIYMatt, Sep 13 2011 Imagine, if you will, the shape and volume of all space occupied as a bun travels towards you from my computer to yours. [+]-- shapu, Aug 06 2014 You don't have the time to eat it. Then again what about 5th dimensional food?-- travbm, Oct 29 2015 random, halfbakery