When the microwave was introduced in the 1960s, it came with a cookbook showing home cooks how to prepare food with this newfangled appliance.
The Meat the Future Cookbook has just kicked off its crowdfunding campaign to release a cookbook for the future. The book will explore what cultured meat may look like.Next Nature, the group behind the In Vitro Meat Cookbook, has been exploring in vitro meat for over two years. Many of the book’s speculative recipes come from the Next Nature Lab at Eindhoven Technical University, one of the best design schools in the Netherlands. They’ve also produced a dedicated in vitro meat exhibition, currently on view at the Rotterdam World Food Festival.
From the campaign:
“The future of meat, now in cookbook form!
Using the format of the cookbook as a storytelling medium, the In Vitro Meat Cookbook is a visually stunning exploration of the new “food cultures” lab-grown meat might create. This book approaches lab-grown meat not just from a design and engineering perspective, but also from a societal and ethical one. What will holiday dinners look like if in vitro meat replaces turkey? Would you eat meat grown from your own stem cells? Is lab-grown meat kosher? Or vegetarian?
This cookbook features dozens of recipes that are delicious, uncanny, funny and inspiring. Think of meat paint, revived dodo wings, meat ice cream, cannibal snacks, steaks knitted like scarves and see-through sushi grown under perfectly controlled conditions. Though you can’t cook these recipes just yet, they’ve all been developed with strict culinary rigor to have correct ingredients and cooking techniques.
The delightful and weird recipes are complimented by fascinating interviews and thought-provoking essays from scientists, activists, philosophers and chefs. Our network of experts will ensure that the cookbook is as scientifically accurate as possible, all while remaining lively and highly approachable for a general audience.
The In Vitro Meat Cookbook is just at home with your art, philosophy and science books as it is on your cookbook shelf. As the ultimate conversation starter about the future of food, it will redefine not just how you think about lab-grown meat, but how you think about the ways we produce meat right now. Rather than pushing an agenda, this book aims to inspire educated debate.”