14 DAY TRIAL // Chances are that we've all heard stories about mad scientists at least once in our lives. Stories about mad chefs, on the other hand, are rather few and far between. Still, they do exist, and one of them is now making headlines.
Thus, media reports tell us that, not too long ago, a chef in the United Kingdom decided to cook one very special barbecue. As detailed in the video below, he used lava instead of a regular grill to cook some steaks and some corn.
According to Daily Mail, this wacky chef is named Sam Bompas. Since lava is fairly difficult to come by in his home country, the man had to travel all the way to the United States to complete this little project of his.
Mind you, Sam Bompas did not simply land on American soil and went looking for an active volcano oozing just the right amount of lava to be fit to serve as a cooker. On the contrary, he visited the Syracuse University in New York.
Apparently, researchers here are the proud owners and handlers of a furnace that can melt rock and other materials in order to make lava. It is this furnace that British chef Sam Bompas used to cook the steaks and the corn.
Professor Robert Wysocki with the Syracuse University and his colleagues admit that, when Sam Bompas first approached them and asked for permission to use their furnace to cook some food with the help of flowing lava, they were a bit intrigued.
Luckily for the British chef, the scientists eventually agreed to let him use their furnace, and even provided him with some much-needed assistance when he set out to prepare the peculiar meal he had previously settled on.
Looking back at this experience, Sam Bompas says that the steaks and corn he cooked using artificial lava at the Syracuse University in New York, US, were by far the best dishes he has until now had the chance to taste, and that they almost certainly owed their taste to the furnace.
“When you cook on a barbecue you get a of of smoke. Because lava is pure heat, you get meat sealed v quickly, and with a very even char. It was awesome - and totally delivers, in fact it was the best steak I've ever had in my life,” the chef maintains.
Sam Bompas and fellow lava enthusiasts hope that one day in the not-so-distant future they will find a way to use lava to cook food for at least several dozen people. They say that one such event would help bring people together and educate the public about natural sciences.
“We are hoping we can scale the lava flow and do this elsewhere, we have big plans. We want to create a lava banquet for 500 people - you can combine education, thrill and have an experience you'll want to tell everyone about,” the British chef explains.