Steak Garden

It's not an outdoor steak fest. It's the new frontier of meat production: steak in vitro. With the technology available, future homes could see steak sized test tubes alongside window boxes of herbs. The pre-assembled packages would include a small tissue sample of the desired meat (synthetic or natural), a biodegradable frame onto which tissue cells can latch on and grow, and enough nutritious serum to feed the tissues.

The steak might not take on the distinct shape of a dead animal, but perhaps the biodegradable frame could come in a variety of forms. Would you prefer porterhouse or flank steak?

Serum traditionally comes from fetal cows but a chemical serum is now used pretty commonly as well. Since the whole point of growing steaks in a test tube would be to cut back on the impact the current meat industry has on the environment and to save a few happy cows, I'm pretty sure the Trader Joe's version of a "grow your own steak dinner" package would include chemical serum as opposed to all natural.

The result is a formless mass of muscle tissue.

Among the first to grow in vitro meat was the artist group SymbioticA. Their project, "Disembodied Cuisine," went on display in France in 2003. Wired recently published an article on cultured meat production possibly reaching industrial levels. I suppose no one would really like to go through the grossities of growing their own meat in a vat, but talk about supporting local, sustainable food.