Cooking Material

Is it possible to make dough with sawdust instead of flour? Caramelize glass crystals like sugar? Freeze-dry a string of wool so it resembles spaghetti? Inside this simple and playful book, you’ll discover a unique relationship between culinary and non-culinary material, both organic and inorganic. By taking what you already know about cooking food, and combining it with the ideas and tips on these pages, you will find inspiration to give life to new materials—materials that are useful, if not necessarily edible. Today, industry innovation has made it possible to transform traditional materials into diverse states. Liquid wood for furniture manufacture, textile spray for auto interiors, and metallic foam for experimental prosthetics are all examples of familiar materials that have been altered into new, more efficient forms. Using this book and common tools from the kitchen—a hand mixer, spoons, and bowls—you, too, can take new approaches to explore and invent materials. So, let’s get cooking! Let’s get experimenting!