The Land Flavor Forgot

The project “The land that flavor forgot” explores the mass off-ground tomato farming in the Netherlands and the possibility of reconnecting with the flavor and the taste of food. Through the means of low tech data collecting, modern fermentation and culinary experiments, this project will reflect on our current way of producing, consuming and tasting the tomato.

By investigating the intensive high-tech off-ground tomato production and consuming its tasteless outcome the questions that arise are: What is this system of life creation in complete isolation promising to feed the world? How can we apply similar processes to create taste? And what does it say about the education of our palate? Fermenting, geo hacking, data collection and culinary experiments are used to investigate the different ways to create taste. It aims to rethink (redo) a tomato cultivation process to produce more nutrients and flavor, but keep the same yield. Using the different parameters found in the off-ground greenhouse such as light, humidity and temperature, in the intent of applying it to culinary techniques such as fermentation but also molecular gastronomy. This tasting menu around the tomato aims to reconnect food and taste using basic and advanced culinary techniques linked to the tomato greenhouses parameters. With this project I aim to create ways to give a new taste to the tomato we find in supermarkets. And rethink, through taste, the tomato of the future.

Political food design, culinary experience and experimentation

2024