Did you know electricity can alter the way we taste food? Proving this fact is a revolutionary electric fork designed by Japanese researchers that can make any dish taste salty, thus acting as a substitute for the popular seasoning.
你知道电可以改变人类饮食的方式吗？由日本研究人员设计的电动餐叉证实了这一点，这种革新性的餐叉能够使食物变咸，成为常用调料的替代品。
According to Hiromi Nakamura, a Post Doc Research Fellow at Tokyo’s Meiji University, the technology can be very useful for people on special diets. Patients with low blood pressure, for instance, can easily go on a low-salt diet and still enjoy delicious food. And with the fork, there’s absolutely no risk of over-salting your food. Luckily, the voltage is so small that there is no risk of electrocution either.
东京的明治大学的博士后研究员中村博美称，这项技术尤其适用于特殊饮食的人群。例如，低血压患者在轻松保持低盐膳食的同时，亦可享用美味佳肴。用了电动餐叉，即使过度调味也绝对毫无危害，而且好在电压很小，所以也不存在触电的风险。
The idea of adding electricity to food was first revealed as an experiment at the Computer Human Interaction Conference in Austin, Texas, in 2012. Nakamura and her team connected a wire to a 9-volt battery and threaded it through a straw placed in a cup of sweet lemonade. Volunteers (who were asked to sign a waiver) reported that the charged lemonade tasted ‘blander’, because the electricity simulated the taste of salt.
2012年，在德克萨斯州奥斯汀举办的人机交互会议中，将食物中汇入电流的理念以实验的形式首度曝光。中村和她的团队把一根电线连接于一个9伏特的电池 上，然后将这跟电线穿过一根插在甜柠檬水中的吸管。志愿者们（被要求签署免责条例）报告称，通电的柠檬水喝起来“口感更清淡”，因为电流冒充了盐的味道。
Nakamura, along with professor Homei Miyashita, now call the idea ‘Augmented Gustation’ and have refined the technology to be able to transfer an electric charge to food through forks and chopsticks. “The metallic part of the fork is one electrode, and the handle is another,” Nakamura explained. “When you take a piece of food with the fork and put it in your mouth, you close the circuit. When you remove the fork from your mouth, you disconnect the circuit. So it actually works as a switch.”
中村和宫下芳名教授如今称这一理念为“增强味觉”，他们已经改善了技术，使电荷能通过餐叉和筷子传导入食物中去。“叉子的金属部件是一个电极，手柄则是另 一个电极，”中村解释道：“当你叉起一块食物放入嘴中时，电路接通，当你的叉子离开嘴巴时，电路断开。事实上它的工作原理就像开关一样。”
Munchies host Simon Klose, who recently visited Nakamura to try out the fork himself, called this form of ‘food hacking’ one of the most profound eating experiences he’s ever had. “When I first heard of electric food it sounded scary,” he said, in a 15-minute documentary clip about the special technology. He later proceeded to use a charged fork to eat pieces of fried chicken, and found that the saltiness considerably increased as the electricity was dialed up.
Munchies网站主办人西蒙·克洛斯最近拜访了中村，亲自试用这款餐叉后，他表示这种“食品黑客”的形式是他最难忘的美食体验之一。“当我第一次听说 通电食物时觉得特别可怕，”在15分钟的纪录片剪辑里他这样评价这一特殊技术。之后，他开始用通电餐叉吃炸鸡块，他发现当电流接通时，食物明显变咸。
“It’s so salty!” he says, after taking a bite. “This is cool. It’s almost sparking. It has a spicy fizziness. Like sparkling, carbonated chicken.”
“太咸啦！”他咬了一口之后说：“好酷啊，好像马上就要冒火花了，还有一点辣，像碳化鸡。”
Nakamura has been eating ‘electric’ food for the past three to four years, in an attempt to understand it better. “For me, food hacking is about augmenting or diminishing real food,” she said. “It may seem like we’re cooking but we’re actually working on the human senses. We are inventing devices to add electricity to the tongue. We’re trying to create virtual taste.”
过去的三至四年里，中村一直都在吃“通电食物”，试着更好地认识它。“对我来说，‘食物黑客’就是在强化或是削弱真正的食物，”她说：“表面上我们是在烹饪，实际上是在人类感官上做文章。我们在发明将电流输入舌头的设备，我们正试着创造出虚拟味道。”