Microbes have played a major part in the history of evolution, but are they also driving the evolution of gastronomy? Noma’s former head of fermentation David Zilber is bringing his expertise into food science. At Bloom 2023, he will give us a wild tour de force in the borderlands between gastronomy and science.
In the midst of deep tech headquarters within the DTU Science Park, fermenter and chef David Zilber works in his kitchen-cum-laboratory.
The shelves are lined with fermentation crocks and SCOBYs, and four large, humming industrial refrigerators serve as a glass filled treasure trove of pickled rhubarb, asparagus, and brined vegetables of all sorts. At the front of the central kitchen table are the tools and raw materials for Zilber'snext experiments developing the flavors and ingredients of the future.
Zilber might have started out as a cook, but his practice and thinking have long been worthy of the most talented research centers. As head of Noma's fermentation lab, he spearheaded the study of microbial transformations of food, and as a sideline to his experimental work as a chef, he has researched a deep knowledge of microbiology upon which both fermentation and flavor depend.
Zilber grew up surrounded by science. His father was an aeronautical engineer for Boeing and inoculated him at an early age with books about the solar system, Carl Sagan's TV series 'Cosmos', and regular visits to science centers. Since then, his interest in the sciences has had a bit of a snowballeffect to say the least.
Today, science has evolved into his great passion and a part of his everyday life. As a freelancer, he conducts fermentation research for the bioscience giant Chr. Hansen, authors articles and books on the topic, and lectures on the microbiology of food at institutions like Harvard, Cambridge, and the Stanford School of Medicine.
At the heart of all this experimentation is a deep commitment to a ceaseless study of the biological sciences.
His story tells of the shared connection between food, microbes and how humans come to understand them both.
Deep down, that story starts with an eight-year-old boy in Canada who once left his bowl of Cheerios and milk on the counter only to come home to a bowl full of yogurt - the first step in a wild career towards showing all the ways in which science touches so much of what we eat.