Can You Cook Food in a Washing Machine to Help the Homeless? This Israeli Artist Thinks So
After spending some time on the streets of New York City, Iftach Gazit, an industrial design student at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, realized that one of the major resources for homeless people was the local laundromat. After all, it provides a space for those in need to charge appliances, rest, refill water bottles and of course clean clothing without being bothered. With this in mind, the lsraeli design student came up with a technique that could be of interest to everyone in all economic brackets: We all need to wash our clothes and we also all need to eat: Why not combine the two while saving time and resources?
For most people, of course, this is easier said than done.
But for Iftach Gazit, not really. This young mind was determined to find a solution for homeless people who did not have access to a kitchen and drew inspiration from the technique known as sous vide cooking, For those of you who aren’t versed in this (somewhat) newfangled form of cooking, let me indulge you: Sous vide cooking is a process that allows one to vacuum-seal food in a plastic bag while it cooks in a temperature-controlled water bath. Many chefs use this method in high-end restaurants, which allows them full control over the foods’ temperature, as opposed to relying on the ol’ temperamental gas flame.
Gazit made several attempts at making sous vide approachable to the less fortunate consumer. In doing so, he came to a couple of conclusions: Tupperware in a washing machine wasn’t gonna cut it, cooking vegetables and meat require different washing cycles, and the material surrounding the food was essentially the solution for this tricky equation. After much trial and error, Gazit eventually settled on using a waterproof Tyvek bag with a plastic liner to keep it from leaking. It wasn’t quite Michelin Star quality so to speak, but the steak was a lot more edible than the vegetables he tried to cook using Tupperware.
The larger goal of the project “is to provide social commentary on the post-WWII American dream of TV dinners and time-saving home appliances.” By designing his Sous La Vie bags, which would hypothetically come in three options- salmon with teriyaki sauce, mixed veggies in olive oil and garlic salt, and garlic-herb steak - Gazit hopes to remind us of our current tastes and the precarious nature of economic circumstances. (The name means, roughly, “under life” - presumably a reference to the plight of the often-invisible homeless.)
Alas, this miraculous product is not commercially available for us to put through the ringer just yet, but eventually Gazit hopes to make it available to the masses. Hats-off (and washed) to this young man who stepped outside the box and came up with a design to increase awareness of problems facing our planet and our fellow humans.
It’s rare (at the risk of sounding trite) that we encounter people like José Andrés genuinely pursuing projects for the greater good.
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