This immersive workshop is a delicious dive into the growing field of food design. Taking place in the French capital of Champagne province, the Travel Cake program is hosted in the kitchens of L’Ecole Supérieure d’Art et de Design de Reims (L’ESAD), home to one of the first culinary design program in the world. Emphasizing a maker-driven, cooking-centric approach, the program reveals new perspectives unto the ways that we engage and identify with our food.
Using materials, gestures, forms and interactions, participants investigate the role that ingredients, taste, shape and service play within food design while developing their own “Travel Cake” concept – a portable snack product. Throughout the workshop, students are challenged to consider the sensory experience of their work and its ethical, aesthetic, historical and political implications. A professional chef assists participants with technical needs. Scheduled visits and tastings to neighboring distilleries, vineyards, local farms and food producers add an experiential component of revealing the complex, and delightful, space in which food design exists.