5 dishes at Expo 2020 Dubai that will change your life

1. Mammoth tartare

There’s a whole industry growing up where we are discovering new ways to make compounds with far less resources: water, land use and greenhouse gas emissions. Inspired by the discovery of preserved woolly mammoths, naturally frozen for thousands of years, orbs of melt in the mouth lab-grown meat revives a once extinct meat.

2. Personalised transgenic dumpling broth

Earth’s ability to sustain human life is dramatically diminishing, exacerbated by our ever-increasing demands on its resources and the need to produce enough food to satiate uncontrolled population growth. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel according to Abigail Yun, Chief of Staff, Geltor, “You can literally flip a switch on a microbe and get it to secrete a compound in the most pure form possible. These compounds can do things like take a plant-based burger to the next level, so consumers can enjoy the same mouthfeel, texture, even nutritional profile [as meat].”

Informed by Geltor’s bio designers, we have created a bio-luminescent seaweed broth containing GM synthesised collagen – lab grown in California – which provides the glowing foundations for a series of hearty vegetarian dumplings accompanied by uplifting pickled accoutrements and seasoned according to your personality.

3. Vegan bone marrow

Developed with insights on future agriculture with Dr Alexandra Sexton, Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield, the gnarly plant-based marrow derived from Macadamia nut milk and pureed kohl rabi and celeriac characterises a future of sustainable synthesised meat and lab-perfected proteins. Served in a bespoke conceptual bone vessel to capture the essence of the story.

4. Lamb breast with basil from the year 2220

Adorned with basil grown in high CO2 climate chambers by scientists at the University of Sheffield simulated to resemble that of the year 2220, lamb breast provides the earthy foundations for a delicate golden chestnut wafer balanced on a cured duck yolk. Garnished with chervil and marigold to celebrate the rewilding of the planet as the Earth’s ecosystem achieves an equilibrium it has not enjoyed since before the first days of industrialisation.

5. Flavour changing jelly

Food is creative, entertaining and stimulating. We have encapsulated pollia berry extract, the world’s shiniest living thing, in a precious sugar crystal which adds a biologically iridescent embellishment to the kaleidoscopic dessert. This comes as a result of extensive experimentation by University of Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry to develop a structural pigment whose bright metallic colour comes from the way that the cellulose is structured in the cell.

An illuminated prism of flavour-changing vegan kiwi jelly is set against a traditional Middle Eastern iced pastry sphere and topped with a pearlescent cacao butter crust and garnished with fresh botanicals.