Designglut invited over some people last week to the NYDesigns fabrication lab - "Fab Lab" if you're in a hurry - to try out our laser cutter. Really try it out.

One of the intriguing experiments was byAMT and Studio Jan Habraken's ham sandwiches, pictured above. I didn't verify it with them, but like all good gourmets, Jan and Alissia  started with quality ingredients - to my eyes a nice cut of black forest ham on some dark rye schwartzbrot. I don't believe they bonded the two layers with mustard.

The nestled signification is also quite neat, delicious and thankfully not overstrained - pork as pork, or rather, pork as "piggy." This is food for aesthetes with an penchant for the ephemeral - or, you know, frat boys with a penchant for vulgarity: everyone really. I call foul on anyone unamused by this charming folly.

But does it taste good? An in-house experiment conducted a couple of weeks ago by the NYDesigns team revealed that a laser cut oreo (rechristened "doreo" for the absence of a center) smells/tastes like "cracked caramel." That explanation was for the camera. Deeper investigation among a larger survey pool yielded descriptors such as "disgusting," "really, really bad," "like burnt food but much, much worse" and "like vaporized medicine." We can conclude that a laser cut oreo has a bad taste which spans the burnt-medicine axis and can elicit some really bad attitudes!

I did not try the ham sandwiches, but I can guess that their flavor profile resembled our "doreos." Surprisingly, the internet has few first-hand accounts of sampling the laser's peculiar anti-umami. I wonder how this nori tastes and if it contributes anything to the overall dish; I'm glad of this breakthrough in cutting intricate food with ultraviolet laser beams, but feel that this process may lose an essential something. In my childhood in an eastern country, the last step in making a particular kind of new year cookie involved sequestering the just-baked cookies in a tightly sealed aluminum drum together with recently blown-out candle. The cookies absorbed the candle smoke, which unfolded as a signature aftertaste following even the smallest bite. This approach would be interesting in trying to mingle food and laser; we'll keep you posted on our future attempts at fantasia.