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Category archive for: Food Packaging

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Elderflower Kefir recipe
Fizzy Bubblig Kinder Champagne

My packaging shows a slightly more explosive recipe than the one listed below. Last year at this time I got into a bit of a kerfuffle with the local Pole Circle Police regarding the legality of foraging elderflower in the park. Turns out these ill-informed armed guards were under the impressio... Read more

Posted on June 13, 2012 15:37

Dear Annet,

Weak, Polar Circle light illuminating a dried pear Thanks for bringing those most tasty and juicy pears to the food co-op last pickup day. We bought 4 kilos and the next day had already eaten an entire kilo! The last 3k we dried because they were threatening to go soft. Just look what they turn... Read more

Posted on November 8, 2011 14:34

A fridge’s eye view of urban agriculture

The author's fridge, filled with home-ferments, foraged, syruped, home grown greens, raw milk and vodka! At the moment my fridge is filled with the bubbling product of home-fermented foods, lots of home grown and a visit to milk lady at the farmer's market. A few days earlier Mark Menjivar's ph... Read more

Posted on September 25, 2011 19:10

Seed optimism

Harvesting purple mustard seeds at midwinter, more than I could ever grow or eat or pickle. Harvesting butternut seeds in the city, if I grew these here, they'd cover the southern façade. Harvesting bee balm seeds at midsummer, for more flowers than the bees need. Flow begets flow. Read more

Posted on January 29, 2009 9:47

Communauté Choucroute, Community Pickle,
a proposal

Jangdok are onggi or earthen jars storing jang (condiments) such as gochujang (chili pepper condiment), doenjang (soybean paste), ganjang (Korean soy sauce) or kimchi. Image from Save the Dinosaur's photostream and used entirely without permission. The following is a statement about food storag... Read more

Posted on October 30, 2008 16:48

Turnip green & pumpkin
ohitashi style sushi

Rescued from the bin: forgotten vegetables transformed into a memorable vegan sushi 40% of all produce is wasted on the route from field to fork. The number is actually more like 60% and it's easy to understand how the waste becomes heavier if we buy industrially produced food from far away pla... Read more

Posted on April 17, 2008 11:35

Harvesting rhubarb by candlelight

Of the BBC's 100 unexpected facts that we didn't know last year I've edited the list to include only the 13 food-related facts. Apparently harvesting rhubarb by candlelight is a way to preserve even more rhubarb flavour. Because 2008 is a year for pumping up the volume, I have decided to make... Read more

Posted on January 4, 2008 12:05

How stuff is made, even the food kind of stuff

Techno artist and design engineer Natalie Jeremijenko, in Amsterdam last Friday presenting at the STIFO/Sandberg workshop showed us a wiki site where her NYU students were sharing information about how common products are made. Among the foodstuffs, shrimp, fortune cookies and eau de vie. For e... Read more

Posted on November 5, 2007 1:52

Kouba Libre
Supermarket Babylon

Homemade ice kouba in a sponsored freezer In the grain section there are more than 20 sorts of rice and then there's a formidable bulgur department. How often does one get to write that, formidable bulgur department, but there is one. Never mind the lack of competition, Babylon is hands down th... Read more

Posted on October 26, 2007 0:59

Whose bread I eat,
his song I sing

Euroforum's Foodservice Congress 2007 was held in conjunction with the FRESH food trade fair in Rotterdam. A lavish display of fruits. With increasing frequency I've been attending expert meetings, symposia and congresses relating to the food industry. More and more these points of contact with... Read more

Posted on September 19, 2007 14:19

The arabised ‘H’ of EL HEMA

Joann digs EL HEMA packaging, image of the chocolate letter 'H' by Mediamatic used entirely with permission EL HEMA, an Arabised version of the Dutch five and dime, will be selling chocolate letters for the disputably secular Dutch winter holiday Sinter Klaas. The Arabic letters are in one of t... Read more

Posted on August 25, 2007 10:49

Made in Transit,
growing food
in a waste of time

Mushrooms of the future are grown in situ in transit When it comes to the food supply, there's a lot of waste to go around. Agata Jaworska, a recent masters graduate from the Design Academy Eindhoven, has designed a way to use the time and space associated with transportation to grow fresh prod... Read more

Posted on July 10, 2007 16:43

Superused food,
2012 Architects host
a freegan dinner

Freegan designers trapped in a 2012 iPod ad. Normally when architects invite you to dinner they don't advertise that they're planning on serving you trash. Completely unbound by convention, 2012 Architects held a freegan dinner last night and were rather loose-lipped about the fact that they di... Read more

Posted on July 4, 2007 14:20

Exhibition the Edible City
at the NAi-M closes

The Edible City exhibition at the NAi-M (the Netherlands Architecture Institute) has finally come to a close. Showing more than 40 architectural, design and urban planning projects, the exhibition was about food systems and the urban environment. There was a time when city-dwellers could more or... Read more

Posted on June 27, 2007 15:09

Food supplements

In Ayanagar Village on the outskirts of sprawling Delhi, the urban agriculture workshoppers accidentally stumble upon a food supplement store. A result of the Green Revolution? Read more

Posted on March 12, 2007 15:07

Chai styling

This is how chai wa served to the Doors 9 JUICE urban agriculture delegation at Delhi's Sabzi Mandi (wholesale vegetable market). Beautiful and neat. Read more

Posted on February 28, 2007 22:04

Foodmiles design competition winners win some JUICE

Image of judging panel used with non-tacit permission Tuesday, one week ago today was devoted to a most ironic activity. I swam back and forth to London to jury the shortlisted entries of an international competition to find design solutions to the problem of foodmiles. And by swam, I mean fle... Read more

Posted on February 6, 2007 13:18

Dang Freegans, eatin’ our trash, stealin’ our women

See what I mean? Used entirely with permission Actually, Freegans don't so much steal our women as eat our trash. And, not so much our trash, but perfectly edible food and produce that shops and restaurants end up throwing away because the products have passed their sell-by dates. As of tod... Read more

Posted on January 1, 2007 2:39

In Praise of Shadows

In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, cover art by Yukio Futagawa used entirely without permission "The sun never knew how wonderful it was, until if fell on the wall of a building," said architect Louis Kahn. I didn't expect to bump into him so soon, having just returned My Architect to... Read more

Posted on October 19, 2006 12:31

Colour codes in food and other things

It's perfectly intuitive. Some examples of colour coding in food, packaging and branding: Red - beef, raw meat, animal protein, amonia Blue - dairy, raw fish, methelated spirits Green - vegetables and fruit Yellow - poultry, bleach Pink - pork, gay Vegetable distinctions: Gr... Read more

Posted on October 16, 2006 11:56

Daddy brung home the bacon

Jamón Iberico, oooh Mama! If you haven't been home for six weeks, there's really nothing that screams 'I love you, Mama!' like a big fat ham. Especially when that ham was raised on acorns, rooting around under the dappled shade of oak trees in Southern Spain. I swear these animals lead better ... Read more

Posted on July 26, 2006 10:42

Soy story: food subculture club visits an exhibiton of Romanian otaku culture

An array of Romanian textured soy products What could be more obvious than the fact that the noble soybean, or rather, the humble hunk of textured soy and contemporary Romanian otaku culture are inextricably linked. You already knew that, right? About one month ago, Mediamatic hosted a most ... Read more

Posted on July 9, 2006 18:13

Wasteware, it’s everything but the squeal in food recycling

Rhubarb and carrot waste formed into little bowls for cherries and berries. Man and Humanity masters graduate Matthijs Vogels has developed a beautiful but extreme way to eliminate food waste by turning it into plates and bowls. At last week's Design Academy Eindhoven MFA show, Vogels exhibited... Read more

Posted on July 4, 2006 12:30

Street food waste = street food packaging

Fish and chips: image of street food packaging concept 'IHO', © Païvi Kovanen, Eva Arts and Caroline van Teeffelen 2006, used courtesy of the designers. Please respect student work, contact culiblog for updates. (This is the second in a series of entries about the Street Food Workshop develop... Read more

Posted on April 29, 2006 11:06

Will swap saliva for a home, the problem with bird nest soup

image from Hoko Studio design collaborative, cropped and used entirely without permission If you were a bird living in a cave in Thailand, would you rather 1. live in a house of your own making constructed from spit and twigs? or 2. live in a gifted house made out of recycled cardboard? Bad que... Read more

Posted on April 4, 2006 20:58

Yesterday’s news: anti-advertgames

"Making money in a corporation like McDonald's is not simple at all. Behind every sandwich there is a complex process you must learn to manage: from the creation of pastures to the slaughter, from the restaurant management to the branding. You'll discover all the dirty secrets that made us one of ... Read more

Posted on February 3, 2006 9:21

Chaat Pack for street nibbles

Here is a chaat array being sold on the streets of Delhi. Check out the packaging stuffed in between the sacks of chaat. You buy some chaat, the vendor mixes it up with some piquante sauce, and you're good to go. This is an example of how a food manufacturer together with a forward-thinking ... Read more

Posted on December 16, 2005 9:16

Chaat Street, Indian chips mimic street food golgappa

Nine months ago I was in Delhi and not in the Polar Circle at midwinter, and it was there that I was introduced to golgappa, one of the top ten amazing things you could ever hope to put into your mouth. The more I re-peruse the images of food from ElBulliFatDuckAlineaMoto and the likes, the more I... Read more

Posted on December 13, 2005 18:04

The Hunger Artist

Here's one for the archives: Google (images) 'Hunger Artist' Happy Thanksgiving, by the way. (more...) Read more

Posted on November 24, 2005 8:04

Everything but the squeal

Sometimes in a recipe, you want to instruct the cook to go outside her normal boundaries of food preparation. I used the term 'everything but the squeal' to describe the use of every single living part of a beet and a radish in an entry titled Yurt and Garden and in an entry on Indian Leafenware ear... Read more

Posted on November 15, 2005 10:41

Shedding light upon the dim

A rectification is in order. In my initial article about the Food Facility I said that it ' ... marks the first time that diners can experience their urban menu in performance format at one dining location.' This is simply not true, and Pieter van der Werf and Esther Plomp from MPD Export were on to... Read more

Posted on November 4, 2005 12:35

A belly full of raw food facility, reviewing a conceptual restaurant

Smart babies bring their own food to a restaurant opening It's probably fair to assert that last Saturday was an all-time first in Amsterdam: two interesting culinary events in one day. I made sure to attend both Juliano Brotman's Raw Food UnCooking workshop as well as the restaurant launch of Mar... Read more

Posted on November 2, 2005 10:31

Guixégasbord Food Facility

(image © Marti Guixé 2005) If you haven't already made a reservation for the opening of Marti Guixé's Food Facility at Mediamatic (Post CS) this Sunday evening, you are plum out of luck because I just made the last one. You can still make reservations for every Friday and Saturday ev... Read more

Posted on October 29, 2005 13:10

Honey, rockin’ my world

A honey shop in the Kadiköy market in Istanbul is visited by wasps. Read more

Posted on October 27, 2005 15:47

I love smoking everything in moderation

Last year in Delhi I reported on why it's a good idea to keep a positive attitude while experimenting with stimulants. This year I simply throw myself into the task. By the volume of the blueish haze, one wouldn't suspect that we were entering an outdoor tea house, but the tea house, (and by tea... Read more

Posted on October 22, 2005 14:36

Amphora types according to culiblog

In one of the artist-in-residence gardens of the future Santral Istanbul, we found a plastic amphora, looking not dissimilar to the amphorae of old. technorati tags: Turkey, amphora, Istanbul, Santral Read more

Posted on October 20, 2005 16:19

Hairy dairy

Turkish goat cheese packaged and sold in an animal skin, just the way it was originally produced. Shepherds discovered that animal milk carried in animal skins curdles, (especially the skins of baby animals) and the rest is culinary history. This tube of tulum cheese was being portioned at the Egy... Read more

Posted on October 19, 2005 13:25

Papabubble is pure sugar finger lickin’

Loyal culiblog readers know that I'm not a big fan of sweets, but sometimes sugar is coaxed by masterful hands into shapes and colours so beautiful, and with flavours so delicious, that it's all I can do to keep from hauling off and giving it a good lickin'. At the moment of writing, I'm popping a... Read more

Posted on October 18, 2005 14:13

All I really really want is locative food

That is, food that tells me where I am and where it's from by it's very name and nature (without the use of an RFID tag). And all I really really want is to have one major train station and one major airport in one country that sells food that is not created by food product designers but by loca... Read more

Posted on October 1, 2005 9:53

Oh to utter the words, food design…

Well it's about bloody time! Coinciding with all manner of design events going on right now in Amsterdam, the Stedelijk Museum hosted a symposium titled Food Design at the ubiquitous Club 11, featuring three speakers and three completely different interpretations. Marije Vogelzang (Proef) is do... Read more

Posted on September 28, 2005 9:03

French disaster relief local food challenge

I should have cancelled heading up north last Wednesday morning when by 6 a.m. I had already made my way across two rivers, almost ruining the treasured Martin Margiëla heels! The bus ride down to Montpellier was spectacular, spectacular meaning that there's something in the scene that can kill y... Read more

Posted on September 10, 2005 11:43

Lolly Lab

Imagine my delight last Sunday when the very first work I see at Arnhem's exam show is Bas Kools' Lolly Lab. Kools is a freshly graduated designer with fine prospects for the future. He'll attend the RCA in London next year. What I loved most about Kools' setup was that he put the prototypes ... Read more

Posted on June 28, 2005 10:21

Fortunately the food was slow and dry

When the 'slow' is the Slow Food Movement and the 'dry' is Dutch design collective Droog Design, the combination of slow and dry is a good thing. In Dutch, droog means 'dry', and it refers to the dry humor of many of the collective's designed objects. Droog is celebrating their Amsterdam Staalst... Read more

Posted on June 10, 2005 0:17

Leafenware is everything but the squeal

A banana leaf is a plate in Bangalore. The uppermost image shows a Ghandi bazaar (Bangalore) plate maker producing and selling leafenware on the street. The waste products of his production are eaten by noshing cows. This is 'everything but the squeal' vegetarian-style. But Delhi is far far a... Read more

Posted on June 2, 2005 9:47

Play with a mandolin

The original recipe for Pasta that is not pasta is coming. But first you need to own a mandolin. Orange rubber bangles, model's own, courgette rings and bangles, model's own. Read more

Posted on May 14, 2005 13:30

Chicken jail

A man languishing behind bars of a chicken jail. This image was taken near Connaught Place in Delhi and is part of an archive compiled by participants of the Nomadic Banquet workshop, Delhi March 14-26, 2005. For more blog entries and image archives, please check out the official Nomadic Banquet w... Read more

Posted on May 12, 2005 15:49

Another short supply chain

This time it's dessert! Ladoos, to be exact. These gentlemen are working in the temple compound (Hanuman Mandir, CP, Delhi) 30 metres from the dung fuel sales and manufacturing woman. Their whole production setup takes place within 10 metres, their point of sale is 30 metres away. A ladoo is ... Read more

Posted on April 26, 2005 9:07

Love those short supply chains

Here in Europe we can't stop talking about 'food miles', that is to say, how many kilometres our food travels before we actually get to touch it. There's that quite famous study of the strawberry yoghurt, It's the same for all products, including cow dung fuel. The images shown were all taken wi... Read more

Posted on 8:24

Sticking to the streets

Delhi- Clustering their services in one Connaught Place kiosk are four paan salesmen, each selling a different recipe of this perfumed and intoxicating digestive leaf from the kiosk's cardinal points. One very interesting thing we learned from two of the Nomadic Banquet participants, John ... Read more

Posted on April 16, 2005 9:33

Delhi Water Bar

A water bar on a sidestreet off Janpath in Delhi. Twenty metres down the street is a pump and a well. This water bar is actually a service on offer to draw customers into a shop selling Kashmiri handicrafts and into an alley with other small shops hidden from the street. I love this tented pavilli... Read more

Posted on April 2, 2005 23:51

Delhi recycling, in all fairness

When is recycling not really recycling? When the recycled or re-purposed item never really had a purpose in the first place. These papers, have been left on the ground (location across the street from Jantar Mantar, Delhi), as far as I can tell, for no other purpose than to be repurposed. The imag... Read more

Posted on March 15, 2005 13:07

Paan virgin spits like a girl

Everywhere in Old Delhi, on every cornerpost of every building there is a terracotta haze. For a while I thought it was just the build-up of iron oxide dirt and dust - and so much of the architecture (for example the Jantar Mantar observatory) has this colour. But after a few hours of walking arou... Read more

Posted on 6:57

A street snack called chaat

In Delhi street vendors sell chaat, that is to say snacks consisting of all manner of puffed, roasted and deepfried legumes, grains, pasta products and broken crackers. Nibbles to go, nibbles to take home, nibbles that remind one of the street. A chaat vendor will sell his beans and bobs dry to ... Read more

Posted on March 14, 2005 19:27

Delhi street food vendors benchmark good health practices and urban planning

This Delhi street vendor has set up a much needed no smoking zone right in front of his stand (located in front of the state emporia across the street from the Hanuman Mandir near CP). I believe he is selling little packets of flavoured chewing tobacco. Read more

Posted on 18:30

Brain Food

This terribly sad but well written book by Mark Kurlansky is a gripping history from the perspective of the cod. Kurlansky tells how fishing for this gadiform has deeply affected the wealth and development of many nations and technologies. I'm thinking the Flounder by Gunther Grass that I read bac... Read more

Posted on January 20, 2005 20:54

Moist towellettes inhibit finger lickage

As usual the package is better than the product because these moist towellettes inhibit finger lickage. Still, it's a great holiday present for under 5 euro for people I don't know. I hope that the receiver of this fine gift won't take it personally. Read more

Posted on December 22, 2004 8:08

Dabba Wallah - git yer tiffin while it’s HOT

You're a dutiful wife (actually I'm temporarily in-between relationships) and nothing short of your own love-imbued cuisine will suffice to nourish your office-bound husband for his lunchtime meal. Problem is you're out in the suburbs of Mumbai and he's situated downtown for the lunchtime hours. H... Read more

Posted on December 10, 2004 12:02

The Banquet Years

Guess what we did last summer... we had a banquet! Maybe because my last entry looked so pitiful, the colourful cakes and the leaden November sky. I thought it was high time to upload some images from this summer's culinary activities - and not just to some dank place in the culiblog archives. ... Read more

Posted on November 16, 2004 17:44

Fade to Beige

What, you don't like my spork? It is designed by Pandora Design in Italy and is called Moscardino. (more...) Read more

Posted on November 6, 2004 8:26

Fashion Food

And indeed, what is UNfashionable about a fake black lacquer bowl filled with instant Tom Yum noodles? Especially if you recycle the fake lacquer bowl and use it again and again for your own stylish soup lunches. I came across this product researching what I will do for my contribution to Museu... Read more

Posted on October 3, 2004 12:04

Presentation is Everything

I feel like this little raisin. (more...) Read more

Posted on July 14, 2004 23:38

No Rest for the Rugged

There you are, a pre Iron Age chef and you want to whip up a fine bouillon for tonight's f�ete. It's easy as pie... read on. (more...) Read more

Posted on July 13, 2004 10:42

If it Bleeds, it Leads

That's was one of the more memorable lines in Michael Moore's, 'Bowling for Columbine'. Moore is speaking to a TV producer, asking him to explain why there are so many fear evoking images on the US nightly news. The TV producer replies self-evidently, 'If it bleeds, it leads'. I thought the line ... Read more

Posted on July 12, 2004 13:28

Taiwanese Bean Beverage

Yesterday Dan said that Latvians are lucky. But today is another day and for breakfast I decided to serve up this Taiwanese Bean Beverage to my Latvian guest *Emils. Just a little good morning experiment. Emils remained cheerful throughout the tasting although shortly after fulfilling his task ... Read more

Posted on July 1, 2004 14:41

Smart Taiwanese Packaging (because you never know when you’re going to want to tuck into that Discorea Mixed Congee snack that you’ve been stowing away in your purse for special occasions)

The spoons that come with the Taiwanese bean beverages that I bought yesterday snapped neatly into the lid. Unfold and click and you're ready to suck up all the goodness. Read more

Posted on 14:04

More Chinese Food!

Yes, that's a hedgehog riding a donkey! This Chinese cookie is made from fortune cookie dough. Normally I never eat fortune cookies, but these were so beautiful... that I can't eat them either. (more...) Read more

Posted on June 25, 2004 23:59

Tonijn voor het Publieke Domein

That's Dutch for Tunafish Salad for the Public Domain, the title of the bad weather picnic that I designed (and produced with the generous help of Tracey Prehay and Anne Schiffer) for the opening of my student's exhibition at the Balengebouw in Roombeek (Enschede). (Website is forthcoming!) tuna... Read more

Posted on 23:48

Camper’s Flagship Restaurant

The wall mural menu at 'Foodball'. These last days in Barcelona I had the opportunity to meet up with designer Marti Guixé to talk about our food-related projects. He showed me the newly opened Camper flagship restaurant that he designed. It's all about balls. (more...) Read more

Posted on June 7, 2004 23:34

Edibility Stamp

Stamp found on a block of tempeh. Edible, drinkable. You can eat it, and apparently you can also drink it. Read more

Posted on May 29, 2004 13:11

Nomadic Banquet mobile kitchen

Mobile kitchen number 59. (more...) Read more

Posted on May 3, 2004 13:43

Don’t Spit Everywhere

No one seemed to be paying a whole lot of attention to these wonderful posters. (more...) Read more

Posted on May 1, 2004 13:32

Cooking out of doors

An outdoor kitchen on a Shanghai street corner. This restaurant was serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. (more...) Read more

Posted on April 30, 2004 13:30

New Logo

This is not a KFC. Read more

Posted on April 27, 2004 13:18

A Single Grain of Rice

Yi Li Mi = A Single Grain of Rice in mandarin neon. A Single Grain of Rice is a project for a culinarily oriented fasting restaurant that I am initiating. Future entries in 2006 will explain this project in greater depth, but at least I've got the neon sign. technorati tags: fasting, China, neo... Read more

Posted on April 25, 2004 12:49

Water distribution by bike

2L PP PD = Two litres per person per day. No gettin' around that. Now get it out there. Read more

Posted on April 24, 2004 18:09

Nomadic Banquet

A tea jar holder in a taxi. Read more

Posted on April 20, 2004 12:24

No Drinks in the Lecture Hall

Nanjing University Students leave their thermos' of hot water outside the lecture hall and somehow remember which one is theirs when they leave the building after the lecture. Read more

Posted on April 11, 2004 11:21

Chinese Frozen Food Code De-mystified

Packets of sticky rice in the frozen food section of the supermarket. The green string tying it all together indicates a vegetable interior, the pink string signals pork and the yellow string is a sign for chicken. In the supermarket there is a GREAT assortment of these in a frozen foods section w... Read more

Posted on April 6, 2004 10:59

Duck Entier en plastique

Duck under plastic wrap at a food-court style restaurant in Nanjing, PRC Read more

Posted on March 25, 2004 8:12

Recipes for Geese and People
and Jeremijenko’s OOZ

2nd course of the dinner for geese and people was called Vegetable Matter Underfoot, (salad carpaccio) visually references the trampled vegetation at the sides of ponds and lakes where waterfowl like to hang out. Natalie Jeremijenko is developing a zoo without cages, and she's calling it 00Z. T... Read more

Posted on March 2, 2004 17:50


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