The US-based research team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Tangible Media Group has been working towards transforming the dining experience by developing new food products that change shape when water is added.

The researchers have concocted food products similar to edible origami, in the form of flat sheets of gelatin and starch that quickly sprout into 3D structures when submerged in water, including pasta shapes such as macaroni and rotini.

These edible films can also be folded into the shape of a flower, as well as other unconventional configurations.

The researchers enhanced the culinary potential of the films by creating flat discs that can be wrapped around caviar beads, similar to cannoli, as well as spaghetti that instantly segregates into smaller noodles when dunked in hot broth.

This latest work by the researchers was presented in a paper this month at the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2017 Computer-Human Interaction Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

The researchers explained that their shape-morphing creations reflect culinary performance art and reduce shipping costs of food materials.

MIT’s Media Lab research scientist and co-author of the paper Wen Wang said: “We did some simple calculations, such as for macaroni pasta, and even if you pack it perfectly, you still will end up with 67% of the volume as air.

“We thought maybe in the future, our shape-changing food could be packed flat and save space.”

Wang and his co-author Lining Yao have been working on various materials that respond to moisture, and mostly on a certain bacterium that tends to change its shape due to the humidity factor. They coincidentally found that the bacterium is used to ferment soybeans to make a common Japanese dish known as natto.

The two researchers started investigating if other edible materials could be designed to change their shape when exposed to water.           

They began playing around with gelatin, a substance that naturally expands when it absorbs water. Gelatin can expand to different degrees based on its density, a characteristic that the team exploited in creating their shape-transforming structures.

Wang and Yao developed numerous shapes from the gelatin films to structures that resembled flowers and horse saddles.

Later, the scientists partnered with the chefs and designed two culinary creations, wherin transparent discs of gelatin flavoured with plankton and squid ink that quickly wrap around caviar and long fettuccini-like strips, made from two gelatins that melt at different temperatures. This causes the noodles to spontaneously divide when hot broth melts away certain sections.

Yao said: “They had great texture and tasted pretty good.”

This research was partially funded by the MIT Media Lab and Food + Future, a startup accelerator sponsored by Target Corporation based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.