Astrophotography + Food’s Future
Celestial bodies have never been closer to New Haven—well, maybe not since former NASA flight engineer Richard Mastracchio tweeted an image of the Elm City from space in 2014. On the ground, Yale’s Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM) has been a control center for forty Portraits of a Planet by astronaut Donald Pettit. A chemical engineer and astrophotographer, he records orbital movements of the International Space Station and its contents around the Earth, one rotation every ninety minutes. During each of Pettit’s three missions, he’s battled otherworldly conditions that damage his equipment and physique. Ultraviolet radiation degrades Si-devices as quickly as lack of gravity softens muscles.
In the most prismatic of Pettit’s prints, stars, planets, and debris streak deep space beyond the thermosphere. Lightning Bugs (2012) is a glowing stream of elements—from bolts to city lights—electrifying our planet’s surface like sapphire static, with only a green vapor ring protecting us from the cosmos.
250 miles above sea level, it’s clear that water is the vast home of an increasingly fragile ecosystem. Responding to diners’ appetites for depleting marine life, chef Bun Lai transformed his family’s sushi restaurant into a model for sustainability. Two blocks from CCAM, Miya’s Sushi activates responsibly sourced and sometimes foraged ingredients, even serving invasive plants, animals, and insects as a conservation method. “Invasive species may be the greatest untapped sustainable food source we have,” notes Lai.
The vegetable-rich menu morphs as often as the tide, adapting to season and environmental need. Some dishes wave to neighbors: Howe Street Block Party (falafel, eggplant, miso tahini) rolls culinary acknowledgment with love for Mamoun’s Falafel. Others are personal: Agedashi (fried tofu in kelp broth) draws inspiration from Lai’s mother Yoshiko’s own cooking.
If you seek the future, Miya’s tasting menu propels you to 2150. Rotating through mugwort to Asian shore crab to black soldier fly larva, the dishes convey creativity that Pettit describes as universal: “Art is an inevitable consequence of being human,” whether in space or kitchen.
2/24/2020