A couple of college blokes from England have come up with a new and hard-to-beat take on the “Whatever floats your boat” philosophy.
According to an article and slide show in this week’s New York Times:
“Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, two young products of Eton and University College, London, have become England’s leading “jelly mongers” – artists who create extravagant, shimmering, brightly colored compositions in gelatin.”
The two enterprising men have created a booming business out of turning their version of Jell-O into St. Paul’s Cathedral (above), wedding cakes, “a ziggurat inspired by the steeple of an 18th century church,” London’s Millennium Bridge and the Madrid airport terminal complete with weensy, wobbly planes (below). Too bad Mad King Ludwig isn't still around to commission a lemon-lime Neuschwanstein Castle.
The NYT article points out that “Besides chemistry, Mr. Parr, who was trained as an architect, and Mr. Bompas, who was in public relations, have had to learn engineering and a certain amount of cooking. At the end of the day, or rather at the end of the meal, a jelly has to be tasty.”
In addition to the flamboyant creativity called for in this line of "work," threre's clearly a certain degree of
"nerd factor" in play. The duo make their own molds, “designing them on a computer in the workshops of University College that translates them into three-dimensional models and transfers the specifications to a machine that makes plaster casts of the molds…” Moreover, they collaborated with a chemistry professor at University College to use food-safe quinine to make a jelly structure that emitted a bluish "glow" under black light. See it on the awe-inspiring slide show.
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