Cornucopia

MIT takes another crack at the ever-promised food machine with this "concept" digital food printer called "Cornucopia". Here's how it works:

Cornucopias’ printing process begins with an array of food canisters filled with the “cook’s” foods of choice. After a meal selection has been made using the device’s multi-touch translucent screen, users are able to see their meal being assembled while simultaneously manipulating real-time parameters, such as calories or carbohydrate content. Each ingredient is then piped into a mixer and then very precisely extruded, allowing for very exact and elaborate combinations of food.

Once each ingredient has been dropped, the food is then heated or cooled by Cornucopia’s chamber or via the heating and cooling tubes located on the printing head. In fact, the ability to hyper-localize heating and create rapid temperature changes also allows for the creation of meals with flavors and textures that would be impossible to replicate with present-day cooking methods.

All very impressive, but since it's still merely a concept and MIT is reluctant to depict the theoretical resulting entree, I suspect that whatever is selected, the end product will invariably resemble a warm, soggy rice cake that tastes like beets.

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