If you’ve ever wished you could eat all the bacon, cotton candy, and chocolate you want without needing to worry about your caloric intake, I have good, if somewhat baffling news for you: Thanks to the Edible Mist Machine from a British company called Lick Me I’m Delicious, you can. It spews out mist flavored like all your favorite foods, allowing you to inhale the taste of everything from lobster to popcorn.
The brainchild of “award winning food inventor” (whatever that means) Charlie Harry Francis, Lick Me I’m Delicious has previously made waves with its portable nitro ice cream parlor. Having previously had a nitro milkshake, I actually think this sounds pretty cool; it makes fresh ice cream on command using liquid nitrogen, and it looks like something your steampunk-enthusiast cousin might have tucked away in his garage. The Edible Mist Machine, however, sounds a little less appetizing. According to the Huffington Post, Francis said about the contraption, “The range of flavors is massive” — apparently there are 200 varieties to choose from — “and we can also produce you a personalized mist from pretty much everything in the world, like your favorite book or even your hair. And it’s zero calories.” I’m not sure why you’d want to inhale the taste of your own hair, but maybe that’s just me. In any event, it seems to work kind of like that whacky booze smoke trend or like an E-Cig.
Even the demonstration video is terrifying — it looks like those weird recurring nightmares about Alice in Wonderland I have wherein the Caterpillar has me trapped in his hookah-clouded lair, unable to move or speak:
Shudder.
Here’s the thing with food, though: It’s not just about the taste. It’s about the whole experience, which also includes the all-important quality known as mouthfeel. From what I can remember from that psychology of perception class I took in college, there’s a reason things like, say, ice cream generally tastes better to us than non-fat froyo. The fat is what gives ice cream its unique, creamy mouthfeel, and while there are some substitutes that come relatively close to it, nothing beats the real thing. Also: Bacon is always better when it’s crunchy. Chew on that, Edible Mist Machine — OH, WAIT. YOU CAN’T. BECAUSE YOU ARE MIST.
Anyway, if you kind of dig the idea of taste-by-smoke-inhalation, you can rent the Edible Mist Machine out if you live in the UK; if you live in the States, though, you’ll have to shell out upwards of $8,000 to get it shipped across the pond. I'll pass, thanks.
