It looks like a sleek, avant garde lipstick or a purse-sized cologne atomizer–one designed by Halston or Calvin Klein. Atomizer is the right word. Only these AeroShot canisters, which got their start at Harvard’s The Laboratory Art/Science project under David Edwards and became available in the US last fall, are packing “breathable caffeine” (plus a couple of B vitamins).
The previous model, aka “le Whif”, packs “breathable” chocolate powder. It was a moderate success in Paris, where Edwards’ Bauhaus-like other lab center (named Le Laboratoire) produced and promoted the experimental chocolate inhalers as an aesthetic experience at celebrity events, and in London, where its spinoff company Breathable Foods now holds court.
Where did this strange, possibly ludicrous idea come from, that it’s a better aesthetic experience to inhale a shpritz of caffeine (please note: flavorless though with a kick, and definitely a drug-I-have-worked-with-in-the-lab-because-it-blocks-G-protein-coupled-receptors) than drink a long, hot cup of intense coffee while reading this blog and contemplate the degree to which your barista still favors you by regarding the temperature and the decoration in the steamed milk foam served on top? Why is it better to puff a little chocolate-flavored powder on your tongue than eat actual chocolate? Somehow, I don’t think the “calorie-free” argument really plays into the decision very strongly, so what’s driving this?
Do we not still have taste buds? Do we not long to extend our coffee break as far from our cubicles as it will stretch? Do we really want our hearts to suddenly kick into overdrive after we have to get back to the office, just when we’re stuck behind the counter, attempting to explain that glitch in the irate customer’s bill? For that matter, do we really want to ingest B vitamins with our caffeine? Or figure out which recycling bin the little plastic aerosolizer goes in when it runs out? Will the aerosolized flavors or food components even still be interesting if we have a stuffy nose?
Do we want to miss out on the gustatory satisfaction of real food?
In the public demos for Le Whif, (according to Edwards’ book, anyway) the French surprisingly enough didn’t mind the fact that many of the chocolate inhalers didn’t work well, or that they started coughing whenever the chocolate powder went the wrong way. They didn’t mind being used as impromptu guinea pigs–or perhaps realize that they were–despite the fact that these products were being tested informally and some of them demonstrated the adverse health risks right away, and that just possibly breathing chocolate-flavored particulates into your lungs might not be all that smart, particularly if you have asthma.
These things obviously didn’t bother the French too much. The packaging was chic, the concept ultramodern, and the activation gestures analogous enough to lighting up a (now-forbidden) cigarette with one’s coffee at a sidewalk café table. And, so the company promised, it was a calorie-free chocolate experience.
Even more surprisingly, it didn’t really matter what kind or quality of chocolate was in the little gadgets, or how it actually tasted in comparison with ordinary solid chocolate. This was closer to participating in Modern Art, or at least in fashion’s idea of modern art. Like a visit to the now-closed El Bulli, which paired some dishes with a side beaker of aromatic vapor, only much less expensive, disposable, and with a simple popular flavor everyone understands. Molecular gastronomy for the common man. Or woman.
Americans of my generation–which also happens to be Edwards’–are a little less sure than the French about the chic value of shpritzing odd substances onto one’s tongue, much less as a high-class cultural or intellectual activity. Our references include tacky mouth spray breath fresheners (made fun of in numerous movies and tv shows over the decades), Bic lighters, Pez dispensers, and asthma inhalers. Kind of low on chic.
So Breathable Foods found the right marketing paradigm–“buzz”–for its target audience: college students cramming at exam time, athletes who want that Continue reading
Filed under: books, Desserts, Diabetes, Eating out, Food Politics, haute cuisine, Odd food, Oddities, shopping, unappetizing | Tagged: AeroShot, Breathable Foods, caffeine inhaler, Charles Schumer, chocolate, chocolate inhaler, coffee, David Edwards, FDA, Harvard University, insulin inhaler, Le Laboratoire, molecular gastronomy, Wyss Institute | 2 Comments »
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