The Ocean_Cookbook is taking form

You may have heard it via Twitter or Facebook:  Open_Sailing just recently won another award, taking home a 10 000 EUR grant which will help jump-start the activities of Open_Sailing's Food Department!

Berlin-based Open_Sailing associate Nadine Freischlad wrote a short concept for a book, based on the Open_Sailing vision: Some sort of hybrid between survival guide, picture book and collection of techniques and recipes, called the ‘Ocean_Cookbook‘.

Working together with illustrator Nina Eggemann for some beautiful images, evoking the possibility of our future life at sea, we were ready to present the concept at 5Gum Vision Lab, an idea contest and workshop event in Berlin targeted at exploring the future of our '5 senses' LOOK, TOUCH, SMELL, SOUND and TASTE. A jury of professional designers and artists (each experts in the field of one of the 5 senses) were to judge the concepts according their originality, relevance and, well, their visionary power.

As representatives of the OS Food_Lab, our primary focus was the TASTE-sense, but  considering that Open_Sailing's future lifestyle at sea equals a re-evaluation of all sense, we were confident that we could grab people's attention at this idea contest.

The book, as we described it, covers several themes: nutritional facts about
what life on the ocean will do to our bodies, DIY survival technologies
(for example, how to build efficient solar stills)… it’s going to investigate which animals and plants are best to be cultivated under these circumstances… .. And how we could cultivate them… finally culminating in a cahpter dedicated to delicious recipes
involving algae, sea cucumbers, salicornia and other yummy stuff!

Luckily, the jury was able to grasp the essence and relevance of the book concept and after we got into the round of 10 finalists (from about 130 applications in total), the door was opened to take home the grand prize! (At first, we were a little sceptical because this 'Vision Lab' is a
sponsored event, (5 Gum is a new product by one of the big bubblegum
companies ;-)) but it turns out that they mean this prize as a subsidy
award with no strings attached...) And what's also great is that we met many people, got a lot of encouragement and established contacts to Telse Bus. She was jury member for the TASTE department - herself an expert for food concepts and food design - was totally enthusiastic about the Ocean_Cookbook and will hopefully advise us in the future!

So, now, what's going to happen? The money will flow into the research and development phase coming up this summer, leading up to the ARS electronica festival in Linz in September. Together with Siska, Harrison Leaf, Peter von Bartheld and other magnificent people, we'll read, build and expreiment until the first floating gardens and small scale aqua-farms are ready to travel alongside Open_Sailin_01!  The long term goal is to put our experience and case studies down in the form of a printed book, the Ocean_Cookbook. We'll keep you posted!

Check out some of the beautiful images Nina proposed for the Ocean_Cookbook