Spherification

This is the culinary process used to form a gelatinous membrane around a frozen liquid and it is called spherification. The process consists of submerging a liquid with sodium alginate in a bath of calcium to form a sphere. I got tired of googling so I’ll just give a couple of examples here. Examples of products created with this process include faux caviar and bubble tea. I assumed bubble tea was carbonated tea but it isn't, it’s a milky tea flavored with tapioca pearls (bigger than the ones in the pudding). And faux caviar, little fake fish egg bubbles, can come in many flavors. I’ll bet less fishy tasting than the real stuff. Anyway this process of spherification is now being used to make edible water bottles. The water is contained in a clear flexible pouch that looks like a (breast implant to me) Chinese dumpling (to the creators). What’s left for them to figure out is how to reseal after puncturing the pouch to open but the project’s leader, Rodrigo García González, hopes the new edible water bottle may be an environmentally-friendly solution to the millions of plastic bottles that clog America's landfills each year.