The Cow Jumped Over the Moon (2009)

From the Menu: “We are pleased to host you at the Key of Life Festival for a gustatory voyage. Commissioned to stage a meal that incorporates the Festival’s concerns of space travel and genetics, we have designed an edible encounter with the entwined materials and narratives of industrial agriculture, inner and outer space. The title of the dinner is borrowed from an old English nursery rhyme in which ordinary pastoral figures are transformed into the fantastical—a common trope in the story of technological innovation. Cows also feature prominently, providing much of the material “stuff” through which these social-technical trajectories are formed.”

Collaborators Boo Chapple & Caitlin Berrigan are artists who work at the intersection of performance, edible sculpture and the life sciences.

Menu →

Jupiter Bullseye Cocktail
Tang · Taurine · Vodka

Flying Saucer Caviar
Mini tortillas · Cream cheese · Molecular gastronomized caviar with salmon DNA

Légumes lyophilisés à la voie lactée
Freeze-dried vegetables · Surrogate mother's milk infused with space fungus and time

Kimchi Ramyeon
Kimchi · Rice noodles · Shiitake mushrooms · Savory sesame broth

Smoked Beef Jerky Balls in Semen Extender Sauce atop a Bed of Cyanobacteria
Beef jerky sponge balls · Spirulina noodles · Béchamel semen extender sauce · Freeze-dried garnish

Angel Cake with Udder Custard
Angel sponge cake · Freeze-dried fruit · Crème Anglaise

Boo Chapple & Caitlin Berrigan holding Bull Semen Extender Sauce & Flying Saucer Caviar

Photo by Luca DiTommaso

From the Menu: “A massive spread of powderized cow’s milk weaves through the dining area to provide ambiance of our beautiful galaxy, the Milky Way. Please deposit all of your waste and utensils into this stream as a gesture towards joining the hundreds of millions of pieces of trash currently floating in space. We hope you will enjoy your meal and please join us in thanking ROC (Restaurant Nieuwe Energie), Joop Wesselink, Marijke Reuvers, Marieke ten Velde, Daisy van Deuren, Dagomar Paulides, VNK and our many volunteers. Eet smakelijk.”

Diners amidst the rubble of the Milky Way waste stream.

Jupiter Bullseye Cocktail

Add vodka and water through the valve, palpate, and sip.

Tang · Taurine · Vodka

“Your Jupiter Bulls Eye Cocktail comes, like beverages in space, as a flavored powder served in a sealed bag. Tang was first developed by General Foods in 1957 and made famous by NASA for its use on the 1965 Gemini flights. Thereafter, all space beverages have been served in this form.

For an extra zip of energy so far uncorroborated by scientific evidence, we have added the sulfonic acid taurine, which occurs naturally in animal bile. While the marketing success of many energy drinks relies on associations with bull virility and stamina, it is named after Taurus only because it was first isolated from ox bile.

Although alcohol is not served in space, we offer you a version spiked with Russian vodka as an intercultural union with American Tang. All excess fluids in space are captured and recycled, thus our cocktail is served in a catheter bag, which is usually used to collect urine.”

A diner sips Jupter Bulls Eye Cocktail from a catheter bag.

Légumes lyophilisés à la voie lactée

Unwrap, drizzle with dressing, and crunch.

Freeze-dried vegetables · Surrogate mother's milk infused with space fungus and time

“To minimize weight and spoilage potential, most food in space is lyophilized, or freeze-dried. Lyophilization is a delicate procedure in which substances are frozen, pressurized and then heated just enough to allow moisture to sublimate directly from its solid (frozen) state into gas. Known to the Incas of Peru, lyophilization was industrialized in the 20th century and lends itself to pharmaceuticals and space food. The permeable, dehydrated structures that result are easily reconstituted with hot water. However, we think the savory crunch of this lyophilized vegetable salad needs little more than to be dressed with our surrogate mother's milk sauce. Like most infant formulas, our dressing is infused with a healthful dose of arachidonic oil. This omega-6 fatty acid is derived in high quantities from the Mortierella alpina fungus. This extraction was developed by NASA in the 1980s for extraterrestrial agriculture and the production of super-foods in anti-gravity environments.”

Drizzling dressing on veggies
Photo by Luca DiTommaso

A diner savors ‘Légumes lyophilisés à la voie lactée’

Photo by Luca DiTommaso

Smoked Beef Jerky Balls in Semen Extender Sauce atop a Bed of Cyanobacteria

Gently re-climatize the tube of sauce between your legs for one minute, then place in a warm bath for two minutes. Stream onto beef jerky ball pasta and savor.

Beef jerky sponge balls · Spirulina noodles · Béchamel semen extender sauce · Freeze-dried garnish courtesy VNK

“Space travel and genetics are coupled perfectly in our signature main course. Our fresh pasta saturated with spirulina imparts proteins and all the wholesome benefits of this special cyanobacterium, which has made many contributions to the advancement of extraterrestrial agriculture and micro-algae. The noodles are topped with tender sponge balls made from powderized beef jerky and other desiccated natural ingredients.

The happy ending to this savory dish is a rich béchamel sauce suitable for protecting frozen bull semen in transit on its long journey from stud testicle to cow. The discovery in the 1950s of adding glycerol to mammalian cells prior to freezing had the effect of stabilizing tissues as they thawed. This suspension and reanimation of life processes enabled tissue banking for the practice of biotechnology at an industrial scale, and revolutionized cattle breeding. Artificial insemination could henceforth be achieved without regard to time or space by simply adding egg yolk and milk semen extender to bull sperm prior to freezing.”

Tubes of bull semen extender sauce emerge from a cryopreservation tank.

Photo by Luca DiTommaso

Angel Cake with Udder Custard

Open package with cake and fruit, squirt with cream, and enjoy.

Angel sponge cake · Freeze-dried fruit · Crème Anglaise

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat with a fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

- Mother Goose nursery rhyme, English, ca. 18th century

Diners squirt cream into angel cake pouches