FLAVOR SPARKS BURSTING IN AIR

If you were in London this past New Years, you may have experience the latest cool thing in sparks -- “edible” fireworks. Since we are about to get thrilled by the July 4th fireworks extravaganzas, and since we’re focusing on food today, we’re sharing this amazing story again.

Fireworks are all about bright sparks and big booms. But Sam Bompas and Harry Parr add taste and smell to the sensory mix for London revelers.

For the last five years, the Bompas and Parr studio have dreamed up bizarre and magical culinary moments. They spent six months working out how to create a foodie fireworks experience.

Fireworks are inherently visual --  and music has accompanied them for centuries. But the other senses have mostly been ignored when it comes to pyrotechnics. Bompas & Parr have created the sensation of tasting and smelling fireworks—without actually eating them.

Pyrotechnic experts and flavor scientists collaborated to create a system that broadcasts flavors in a totally innovative way. The experience is a bit like a dream come true in that you can consume deliciousness without adding calories. For example, you can inhale strawberry smoke or eat peach-flavored snow.

Bompas & Parr believe passionately that food is entertainment, and they aim to make it as entertaining as it can possibly be.

Bompas & Parr recently created the world’s first multi-sensory firework display, sponsored by Vodafone, for London’s New Year’s Eve. While we are used to fireworks being choreographed to music, these danced to tastes and aromas. Watch the videos here.

People watching London’s fireworks between Westminster Bridge and Hungerford Bridge got to experience beautifully colored fireworks matched to fruity flavors.

For example, when the sky exploded with bright red sparks, it triggered a strawberry flavored cloud that you could see, smell, and taste.

Then came clouds of apple and cherry, followed by a strawberry mist, peach snow, ‘floating oranges’ – thousands of enormous bubbles filled with Seville orange flavored smoke and edible banana confetti.

Bompas & Parr experimented with thousands of different varieties of fruits to find the perfect species to deliver their flavor sparks. They wanted to find flavors that were familiar and easily discernable in a smoke format.

As fireworks shows are public events that generate mass excitement and joy, Bompas & Parr aimed to deliver taste sensations that everyone in the crowd could experience simultaneously.

Read more about Beautiful Sparks, as they relate to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including How to Capture Beautiful Sparks and New Images of Primordial Sparks.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Sparks in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 07.06.14. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!

PHOTO CREDITS:

1. Photo: Courtesy of Bompas & Parr. Edible Fireworks art.
2. Photo: by Stefan Braun. Courtesy of Vodafone. Watching the Edible Fireworks.
3. Photo: by Stefan Braun. Courtesy of Vodafone. Bompas & Parr.
4. Photo: by Clarence Ji. London New Year’s Eve fireworks display.
5. Photo: Courtesy of Bompas and Parr. Still from Bompas and Parr New Year’s Eve Fireworks video.
6. Photo: by Paul Brocklehurst. London Fireworks by Bompas and Purr.
7. Photo: by Chris Chabot. London New Year’s Eve Fireworks.
8. Photo: by Ellie Pearson. London New Year’s Eve Fireworks.
9. Photo: by Stefan Braun. Courtesy of Vodafone. Bubbles filled with scented smoke make their ascent.
10. Photo: Courtesy of Bompas and Parr. Still from Bompas and Parr New Year’s Eve Fireworks video.
11. Photo: Courtesy of Vodafone. New Years Eve London Fireworks display.