Invasive Species For Dessert? Food Makers Hope ‘Future’ Sweets Get Us Talking About Climate Change

Our transferring surroundings’ effect on what and how we devour is one of the most pressing troubles of our time. But how do you inspire humans to assume and speak about what our food might be like in a warmer future?

Local dressmaker and researcher Keith Hartwig believes one answer is to have them flavor it for themselves.

He’s been looking for ways to interact with human beings’ senses as they ponder the relationship between climate exchange and local food structures. His present-day experiment is part of a new exhibition titled “Untold Possibilities at the Last Minute,” now at Cambridge City Hall Annex.

With his teammates Matthew Battles and Jessica Yurkofsky at Harvard’s metaLAB, Hartwig created interactively public tastings — dubbed “FUTURE FOOD” — to pair with the exhibition.

Before the tastings had been set, Hartwig and his colleagues asked vicinity chefs and food producers a few questions on the surroundings, sustainability, food fairness, and waste. Then, Hartwig’s crew issued three-phrase prompts to get the makers’ creative juices flowing.

“One is invasiveness,” Hartwig said. “One is involved — which is to reflect onconsideration on how we can begin running with communities to deal with those questions. And the 0.33 is invisible — so what are the invisible or hidden effects of weather exchange on the meals gadget?”

Hartwig and some producers accrued at Toscanini’s in Kendall Square to show us what they got up with. That’s where the renowned ice cream-safe co-founder, Gus Rancatore, had taken on a provocative element.

“He’s using Japanese knotweed — which has to end up a symbol of invasiveness — and a plant that has grown prolifically due to environmental disruption and climate exchange,” Hartwig defined. “But it’s a plant that truely is full of nutrients and has lots of possibilities in phrases of the way that we might begin considering it as a future food.”

Rancatore stood over a gasoline variety in his save’s kitchen, stirring a sugar syrup.

“So what we’re going to do today is make knotweed sorbet,” he defined. “And we are truly making this for the second, probably the 1/3 time because we want to improve the feel.”

Rancatore had to get the sorbet simply proper for his FUTURE FOOD event. (The tasting changed to be held on May 25.)

“Knotweed is your prototypical invasive species that grows anywhere — Wiley and recklessly,” he mused. “The idea that we might get a few blessings from it was exciting. It’s additionally an instance of ways everybody within the meals commercial enterprise has to conform to changing surroundings.”

The longtime ice cream expert enlisted local foragers to get early-season knotweed because it tastes higher.

“This is the distillation of per week’s-really worth of work through 5 those who delivered us a hundred kilos of knotweed they harvested from flora and fauna regions,” he recalled. “We cooked it down, and we pureed it, and we sieved it, and we were given this special mucilage — to apply the word you don’t get to apply too regularly.”

Rancatore introduced applesauce to the aggregate, giving it an earthy, greenish-brown color like camouflage. He thinks the feral, herbaceous blend tastes somewhat like cool applesauce.

“I don’t suppose that is something it is going to work its manner into grocery store freezers,” Rancatore said. “I assume that is an exciting assignment that makes you reflect onconsideration on changes in the environment and adjustments in American foodways.”

Boston chef Nate Phinisee’s FUTURE FOOD venture changed to highlight invisible forces that guide our food. He labored with five exceptional varieties of locally harvested honey to create toffee and “honey waters.”

Hartwig stated that Phinisee’s culinary investigations allow human beings to flavor each honey’s unique flavor profile “and to recollect their relationship to the broader ecology of our region.”

Phinisee twisted the lid off a jar of candy he made and popped one in his mouth.

“They’re toffee consistency,” he shared, “and they’re very sticky.”

To make the candy, Phinisee used Boston wildflower honey and nothing else. The impact is mighty and natural.