{"id":403288,"date":"2021-11-24T11:45:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T11:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=553295"},"modified":"2021-11-24T11:45:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T11:45:00","slug":"i-might-have-eaten-the-meal-of-the-future-it-cost-270-and-left-me-hungry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/11\/24\/i-might-have-eaten-the-meal-of-the-future-it-cost-270-and-left-me-hungry\/","title":{"rendered":"I might have eaten the meal of the future. It cost $270 and left me hungry."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the first half of the 20th century, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company built two skyscrapers just across the street from Madison Square Park in Manhattan. One of them is now home to Eleven Madison Park, widely considered one of the best restaurants in America, and the most prominent to announce its intentions to do something about climate change. The other tower, currently home to a luxury hotel, is the setting for science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson\u2019s dystopian 2017 novel, New York 2140<\/em>, which takes place after catastrophic climate change has already arrived. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleven Madison Park doesn\u2019t exist in the world of New York 2140<\/em>, because the polar ice caps have melted, sending global sea levels up by 50 feet. All of Manhattan south of Central Park is now underwater, its famous grid of streets now a grid of canals. The lower floors of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company\u2019s towers have been hardened to keep the water out, and the upper floors have been converted into co-ops of tiny efficiency apartments for well-off professionals \u2014 lawyers, investment bankers, influencers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tower where New York 2140 <\/em>is set is also an agricultural operation. There\u2019s an open-walled farm floor on the upper level, supplying tomatoes, squash, and hydroponically grown greens for the co-op\u2019s no-frills cafeteria. Pigs live on the farm, too, their meat available to any co-op resident motivated enough to personally raise and kill them. Salmon, trout, catfish, and clams grown in aquaculture cages in the body of water formerly known as Madison Square Park are another source of protein. The future New Yorkers of Robinson\u2019s imagination have figured out how to live with climate change and how to eat relatively well in spite of it. The ones who can afford to live in one of the Met Life towers, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in the present day, Daniel Humm, the owner and executive chef of Eleven Madison Park, has been rethinking his restaurant\u2019s legacy. Earlier this year, Humm began offering a radically different vision for how rich New Yorkers will change their diets in the face of climate change.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>
View this post on Instagram<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/a>

A post shared by Eleven Madison Park (@elevenmadisonpark)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>