Month: July 2012

by Josh Evans. These past few weeks have seen a lot of changes: interns have come and gone (more on their projects soon), MAD Symposium brought all sorts of visitors to the boat (even more than usual), and probably most significantly, we welcomed on Ben Reade as our new Head of Culinary Research and Development. With Lars leaving his official position at the lab to go head up the test kitchen at Noma, Ben immediately seemed like the perfect new fit for the job. Ben has already been with us for a while – he first came to us last September for three months to do research for his bachelor’s thesis at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, entitled “Flavour exploration and biotechnology in the new Nordic cuisine”. After graduating in March, he came right back to lead the planning of MAD 2 as Project Manager for the Symposium. Ben’s full … Read more

by Josh Evans. 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 … Read more