The world’s first lab-grown beef burger after it was cooked.
LONDON: All it took was a little butter and sunflower oil and, in less than 10 minutes, the world’s most expensive burger, grown from muscle stem cells in a lab, was ready to eat.
“I was expecting the texture to be more soft,” said Hanni Rützler of the Future Food Studio, who was the first to get a taste of the synthetic beef hamburger at an event in London yesterday that bore more resemblance to a TV set than a scientific press conference.
The lack of fat was noticeable, she added, which meant a lack of juiciness in the centre of the burger. If she had closed her eyes, however, she would have thought the cultured beef was definitely meat rather than a vegetable-based substitute.
The fibres had been grown in the lab and bound together, coloured with beetroot juice and shot through with saffron to complete the burger that, from a distance at least, looked perfectly ordinary.
The chef tasked with cooking it was Richard McGeown of Couch’s Great House Restaurant in Polperro, Cornwall, who said it was slightly more pale than the beefburgers he was accustomed to but that it cooked like any other burger, was suitably aromatic and looked inviting. The Guardian
