Do You Exist?

Like many people, I enjoy dining out. While I believe myself to be a good cook, there are some dishes that I prefer to leave to trained professionals. These would be the signature dishes of particular restaurants. They are the ones that look and, after one bite, taste like something you could make, but when you get home and try out your version of the recipe, it falls flat. Your version is missing the all-powerful “secret” ingredient, the one that the head chef sleeps with for fear it may get stolen.

For the longest time, I’ve dreamt of a special machine that I don’t believe has been invented yet. At first glance, it looks like a plain, old box. However, when you turn it on, it comes to life. A pair of lips shoots out of the center and ask you to place the food sample between the lips. Once you do, the lips descend into the box where the sample is examined for all known ingredients. After a couple of minutes, the lips rise out of the box and tell you the recipe. Knowing the recipe, you would never have to spend fifteen plus dollars on a special dish again.

The downside of this machine is that restaurants, hearing of its existence, would probably start adding a special chemical into the food that would keep this machine from discovering the recipe. Also, you may come to realize that it was the ambiance of the restaurant and not really the food that kept you coming back for more. Furthermore, what if the machine picked up on some ingredients (You find that your fear of the “secret” meat being baby was spot on.) that made you too disgusted to ever eat again?

I would imagine that this machine would cost far too much money for an average person to be able to own. Though I imagine it to be no larger than a shoe box, I know that it would somehow end up being manufactured to be roughly the size of a compact car and who can fit a car on their counter? Still, it’s a cool invention and I’ll continue to dream about it.