- Title: 'Like tasting for the first time'- VR eating debuts in NY
- Date: 20th December 2019
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) 25-YEAR OLD FINANCE ASSOCIATE OF JAMES BEARD FOUNDATION, WOLFGANG JORDE, SAYING: "You're tasting food in a completely different way, like I was pressing this cod around my mouth in a way I've never kind of moved food around my mouth. It was a little bit disorienting to do that cause you're like tasting, thinking about like, 'ok, well, what is this? If it doesn't match what I'm seeing.' So I think really, it sounds a bit strange, the way I was moving the food around my mouth to get a sense of the texture was, I think, one of the more interesting parts, because when you see it, when I see lobster, I have a certain texture, when I see steak, I think, 'ok, it's gonna be like this. It's going to have this chewiness, or this softness.' And when I see this picture, I might have an association with that picture if I know a food that's similar to it. But once it breaks that, I'm really trying to figure it out. So I'm it's like, again, 'like tasting for the first time,' It's like, you know, you've never had a piece of cod before and you're trying to figure it out."
- Embargoed: 3rd January 2020 22:33
- Keywords: James Beard Rahi Roni Mazumdar VR eating Virtual reality
- Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES / SHANGHAI, CHINA
- City: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES / SHANGHAI, CHINA
- Country: USA
- Topics: Living / Lifestyle,Society/Social Issues
- Reuters ID: LVA004BAS3UCB
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Step aside foams and plant-based food, the cutting edge of food may not even include food.
That's the idea of the Aerobanquets RMX, "a mixed reality art and dining experience," currently on the menu at New York dining mecca, James Beard House. In practice, Virtual Reality (VR) eating allows diners to see a VR representation of their food through goggles they wear while dining. VR, a computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image, enables users to immerse.
The artist behind Aerobanquets RMX is Italian interdisciplinary artist, Mattia Casalegno.
VR eating upends the traditional experience of eating, diners at the Beard House told Reuters.
"When I see steak, I think, 'ok, it's gonna be like this. It's going to have this chewiness, or this softness,'" explained Wolfgang Jorde, a 25-year old finance associate of the James Beard Foundation who participated in a VR meal at which Reuters was present. Having traditional vision replaced with VR imagery eliminates the visual element of customary eating. And so as food came his way, Jorde was "really trying to figure it out," he said. It's 'like tasting for the first time,' It's like, you know, you've never had a piece of cod before and you're trying to figure it out."
The meal Jorde and his peers participated in was hosted by Aerobanquets's CEO Roni Mazumdar, who is also the founder of New York-based restaurants Rahi, Adda and Dhamaka. And so the menu was heavily influenced by South Asian touches, including a Kafta featuring goat cheese, and a Dal with lemon dumplings,
For Mazumdar, the hope is that eating will become a "little more enhanced because of the ambiance" VR allows. "Would that seafood taste better if you were sitting on a boat in the middle of an ocean with your uncle next to you that you haven't seen in years?"
VR eating has also appeared at Japanese restaurants like, "Tree by Naked." Aerobanquets RMX itself has already had runs in Seoul and Shanghai.
But according to Mazumdar, the inspiration for VR eating is in fact nearly a century old, and stems from "The Futurist Cookbook," published in 1932 by Italian activist, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, as a collection of surrealist recipes.
As with many new trends, VR eating is in this current iteration an elite affair. Tickets cost $125 per person for the hour-long experience that includes more than seven rounds.
And VR technology's reach is still an open question; consumer VR software investments fell 59 percent from 2017 to 2018, according to SuperData Research, as was reported by Bloomberg.
At the same time, hardware VR sales are up. And according to Mitchell Davis, the chief strategy officer of the James Beard Foundation, VR eating has the potential to bring "expensive technology to a much broader audience," as he told Reuters. "You don't need 50 people in a kitchen and a thousand dollar dinner to have a transporting experience that changes the way you think about food."
Located in Manhattan's West Village, the James Beard Foundation is known for giving out the biggest awards for the U.S. restaurant industry.
Tickets for Aerobanquets RMX are available through January 26.
(Production by: Dan Fastenberg and Hussein al Waaile) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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