Design isn't traditionally associated with food, but there's no reason why it can't be: Marti Guixe is, for example, a strong advocate for rethinking how we approach our edibles, and now a Spanish physicist and electronic engineer has found a way to make ice cream even more intriguing using all natural ingredients.
Manuel Linares, a Spanish physicist, created multicoloured ice cream that changes colour as it's licked. Its transforming appearance is matched in part by a multitude of accompanying flavours, with early taste-testers describing the creamy concoction as like a heady mixture of different fruits. It starts out as a light blue, a spray is added - dubbed 'Love Elixir' by Linares - gradually turning it a rich pink. The treat then shifts into different colours each time that it's licked.
Linares is now working on more curious approaches to ice cream - including one that reacts to ultraviolet lights, and another that will change colour with no interaction from the consumer. It's an interesting approach for a couple of reasons. Linares' experiment challenges preconceptions about how we should expect our food to act, not to mention the amount of chemistry tinkering that went into actually producing the product itself.