Towards the end of June, work at the lab slowed as we donned our boots and headed out to the rain-soaked fields at Refshaleøen. The circus tent was up and the tasks were set to prepare the site for the second MAD Symposium, a thus-far annual gathering of chefs, producers, thinkers, and leaders in food from around the world. The theme of this year's symposium was 'appetite', and the twenty or so speakers delivered a huge range of talks, from the incredibly polished to the conversational; there was sharing of research, demonstrations of all sorts, musings on the larger, less tangible forces of culture, stories most of us could never begin to think up, and of course, some delicious and intriguing samples. Some of our favourite presentations were those by Roddy Sloan, who supplies Noma with sea urchins from the northern reaches of Norway, and Patrick Johansson from Sweden, also known as the Butter Viking, who makes the most interesting and expert butters. Other notables included David Chang, Wylie Dufresne, Dan Barber, Paul Rozin, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and Ferran Adrià. All shared their thoughts with style.