Who will taste the cherries?

In 2015, a design lead visited a Silicon Valley test kitchen where chefs and researchers were developing a smart oven capable of cooking Michelin-grade meals automatically.

The oven used sensors to measure food properties like moisture, color, and temperature, while chefs filled out sensory forms to record subjective qualities such as taste and texture.

The goal was to create an oven that could replicate expert cooking techniques without human input.

However, the chefs struggled to translate their intuitive methods into data the oven could understand.

For example, one chef tried to cook lamb under a broiler to mimic the effect of 'smacking it with a propane torch,' a technique the oven’s logic could not process.

The oven relied on quantifying taste and food qualities, assuming these could be reduced to measurable data points.