An unforgettable moment at Fakuma 2015

It's always amusing at trade shows to see what crazy demonstrations exhibitors come up with to draw eyes and visitors. Games, giveaways, an open bar… some go over better than others.

Possibly the biggest crowd-pleaser at Fakuma 2015 came from Covestro, which, in a bit of mad-scientist genius, handed out frozen popcorn.

It's regular popcorn, dipped in liquid nitrogen to drop its temperature to roughly the “crisp winter morning” range. Totally harmless to eat, but it makes the snacker exhale a smoky vapor that might remind you of a mythical dragon or of Tyler Durden in Fight Club, depending on your pop culture proclivities.

Chemistry and free food? I'm in.

I headed over to the Covestro booth, acquired a handful of the chilly snack and tossed it back. In an exciting twist, the frozen popcorn tasted like… popcorn, cold.

As I executed my best-ever dragon impersonation, I noticed the company had also laid out trays of rainbow-colored gelatin. The same colors in Covestro's logo, actually. What a coincidence.

It wasn't a coincidence. As the gentleman behind this particular display explained, this was no ordinary jello. His name is Jens Lorenz, and he's from a molecular gastronomy company that uses science to produce food and drinks in unexpected forms.

The six trays of Jello at the Covestro booth were each flavored with something familiar, but the colors were totally random. Like green eggs and ham. It's a bit of psychological trickery that makes it very difficult to guess the flavors.

The idea was inspired by Covestro's experience as a new, independent company working to build recognition in the industry, Jens said. Not everyone connects the new company name and logo with its identity as a global polymer company, formerly the Bayer MaterialScience unit.

It's familiar, but perhaps not entirely understood.

Oh. I get it.

I pointed to the tray of Jello in the front-and-center, a rather fetching shade of green. Jens suggested I start with the red-colored gelatin instead.

Sure, why not.

Red was citrus-flavored. Yellow was vanilla. I couldn't place purple or blue, which turned out to be rose and, disturbingly, chocolate. The guy trying samples next to me wavered and tapped out. I kept going.

And then we got to green. The color that in my childhood meant lime or, in a stretch, sour apple.

One medium-sized green jiggly cube. I chewed.

The regret was immediate. My taste buds declared DEFCON 1. My brain, struggling for an appropriate flavor adjective, produced “warmish.”

With all of the professional journalistic composure I could muster while resisting the urge to violently retch, I asked the flavor.

“Langoustine.”

THAT is why you don't start with the green Jello.

For those not up on culinary trivia, a langoustine is a sort of orange-colored lobster-creature, the stuff of encyclopedia articles that include words like “carapace” and “moult”. It is widely considered a delicacy, though would not be, I'd expect, if it were more generally presented as a gelatinous mass of verdant ooze.

It is not something my stomach will soon forgive me for.

Now, my editor has advised me not to use the word “sadistic” here… so we shall say Amazing Technicolor Gelatin was a creative choice of promotional activity from the folks at Covestro.

I must admit, it was memorable.

Jens mercifully brought me a Coke (a regular Coke, I verified) to calm my scandalized taste buds.

He said the demonstration was very popular at the show, drawing visitors to Covestro's booth and provoking conversations about the company. I can verify this; during the course of the show several people insisted I go check out the cool science thing Covestro was doing (although none warned me it would involve oddly colored seafood gelatin).

Back in the newsroom, my colleagues reacted to my distress in a customarily empathetic manner:

“We should have gotten it on video!”