Food lab: Designers create a mouth-watering olfactory experience

The process, created by designers Omer Polak and Michal Evyatar in collaboration with professional chef Erez Komorovsky, was inspired by Polak’s research into enhancing our sense of smell. The dough, specially engineered to be extremely flexible and able to create a thin layer for baking, was made with fresh herbs and vegetable juices instead of water to provide a more intense olfactory experience.

During an event at Jerusalem Design Week, visitors were provided with a flattened dough circle, covered with a metal ring, which they placed on top of a heat exhaust. Inflated by a stream of hot air, the dough created deliciously fragrant spherical forms. Guests then bit into the cooked dough ball, releasing the aroma and heightening the eating experience. The event was set up as an urban dining experience inspired by Food Truck culture with the cooking units referencing a small-scale factory.

Blow Dough is part of a Polak’s project S-Sense, which combines research into the sense of smell, design and neuroscience.

Introducing experiential food design into the context of a workshop reminds us of the work of food designer Jacopo Sarzi. To learn more about his practice, read our Portfolio review.