The “Blow dough” project manufactured dough balloon, using industrial blower, with highest temperature of 600 Celsius, which made the seasoned dough baked during blowing it into the shape of an inflated balloon.In the manufacturing process, local herbs were added to the blowing act and their exceptional senses were assimilated to the dough. Thus, the entire eating experience was enriched.

The project illustrates the food manufacturing process in a small-scale factory that was established for one day as an analogy to the street food carts and to the urban eating experience in Jerusalem.

The project was created for the Jerusalem Design Week, and reflects many aspects of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is a multicultural city which hosts many types of foods, dishes and eating habits that influenced from different cultural. The local food in Jerusalem is usually refers to “street food” and characterized by a similar food making process that surrounds one little counter where all the magic happens. One of the most popular and common ingredients in the Jerusalmic food arena (and the entire middle east) is the bread and its different types – pita bread, bagels, bans, and more.

Hence, we chose to use the very basic materiel of flour and water, and combine it with the designer’s territory of producing processes.

The project offers a new perspective for dough uses by borrowing the producing process from other industries, and allows the participants to view and to be exposed to the food process openly and transparently. In the process of creating this project we came across a few challenges; we were searching for the best flour with a specific gluten amount that fit our needs - strong and elastic dough that won’t tear while inflating it. While looking for the perfect recipe we added vegetables and fruit extracts to get a different colors and tastes.

We believe the world we live in is captured with a very specific concept of the culinary consumption, so we strove to create among the consumers a full understanding of the food making process, from the raw material to the final edible and designed product.

first we focused on the basic ingredient – the dough – and we developed it from there. We also decided to focus on the food making process, and we created a ceremonial festival around it, which makes the process inherent to the final product. In that manner, the visual stimulation of the colorful dough, created from the essence of several different vegetables, the effect of the inflation to a bigger and bigger balloon, including the performance of the “blow-dough” operators, in addition to the various scents surrounding the room, were all contribute to the ultimate bite from the final product.

The manufacturing innovation in our project is the lending of a common tool in plastic and car industries to a food making process. That allowed us to meet our desires and create a new, different and unique eating experience – the holding of the dough balloon, the fragile texture, the trapped smoke which transforms to an “edible odor”- all led to a new product that surprises not only in its appearance but also in its taste. We duplicated this experience to 8 workstations in order to emphasize the industrial potential embodied in the project, and enhancing the ceremonial and constant aspect of it.

The project was divided into different fields from which we created the full experience. First we explored the raw material we chose –the flour. What are the uses that have been done with flour in different cultures around the world and over time? There are many types of breads, “Pitta”, bagel, with or without yeast, in which the flour get a particular treatment that create the special texture, taste and shape.

At that point we understood that our focus should be in flour, water and fire - basic elements for a basic food. And after studying the current processing methods like steaming, baking, burning stove frying and fire fire, we yet haven’t found a dough inflating process, process which common in the designer’s world, especially in the plastic industry. We discovered that bringing together the combination of food and industry can create a new baking method - inflating with a blower that reach high temperature and can bake at the same time our dough balloon.

The next step in our research was the “perfect” recipe that will have all the quality that we need –ability to stretch and not be torn in the inflating time. To be strong enough for the heating stage after it formed. We found out that in some kinds of dough, an air pocket appeared and prevented the whole surface to be baked properly. So we remade the recipe and even added to it vegetables extract instead of the water, to get a new color and taste to our new balloon. All that time we were consulting professional chefs from the kitchens, pastries and bakeries to learn from their rich experience. Erez Komorovsky, Israeli chef, was our main adviser Through the whole way.

With the understanding of the dough, we start inflating the dough while changing few variables, like temperature for right baking, speed for fast inflating and joints between the blower and the dough. Data then was analyzed for building the workstation that will produce the perfect balloon. We have visited in small and big scale factories in attempt to re-scale our factory to one compact workstation, that will be comfortable and wise to operate. Our models were small workstations like food carts and various craftsman workstations.

After finding the best dough with the best inflating process we assembled the flow of the evening. We composed three balloons course with different tastes and colors that were contained various smoke odors. Like in a good meal we opened with saline balloon to a second taste course and finished with a sweat dessert’s balloon.

The contribution and the value of our project are reflected in few aspects firstly there is a broad cultural importance of the existence of an independent local industry(like street food for example). Those places are now vanishing slowly by the big corporations under cover of the capitalism. The project increase the focus about the eating experience and and the role of the consumer in the production systems, the purchase and what will happen to small manufacturers in the future.

As a designer we asked question about our place in the food area, what are the tools that designers bring to the culinary world? And how this toolbox can change the eating experience and the product itself? We think that in culinary innovation, material’s research and manufacturing process can lead to amplification of our sensual consumption of food.

Not by adding raw materials and tastes but by simplicity for getting the true honesty of the specific product. Innovation allowed by crossing the lines between the professions - chef and designer that are very similar, both create out of raw materials and work to fulfill their destiny through the consumer experience.

As mentioned earlier, Jerusalem is a multicultural city and it affects on the culinary domain. The old city of Jerusalem is loaded with unique and traditional food carts that contain old recipes and stories from around the globe.“Blow dough” keeps the multicultural nature of Jerusalem and offers a new perspective that combines it all. First, the final baked balloon product is a modern interpretation of the classic pita bread, the “Lafa”, as bread that function as a container for diverse foods and ingredients. The Pita is a very common everyday food that became a symbol of the local cuisine.

Second, the scent that spreads in the making process of the “Blow dough” , especially when the herbs are burned, take us back to a place in time when food all over the world was made on a bonfire, and brings up memories from the oriental as well as the occidental kitchens. The final recipe of the dough was influenced by that notion and derives from the German Strudel dough and the local pita bread - “Lafa” (baked on “Sagh” – iron dome locate on bonfire). To this combination we added a new baking method – electric – that spreads hot air directly up to the fresh dough. Those action and methods makes hybrid bread incompatible to the multi cuisine atmosphere in Jerusalem.

The final products in the “Blow dough” project have plenty of nutritional elements. The natural white flour combines with the vegetables extracts, alternates the dough to a high nutritional valued one. Still, it is important to mention that the nutritional elements of the components in the product weren't one of the parts that motivated the project, but rather the components availability, accessibility and inexpensive characters.