Marc Powell | food hackers | food experts | Microsoft

Molecular gastronomy, for most of its short history, has been the exclusive domain of chefs and scientists, food experts with immense resources and the skills to put them into play. But nothing stays out of the mainstream for long, and molecular gastronomy ­- or geek gourmet, as it's sometimes called - has been picked up on by amateurs. The best place to look for these food hackers is in the technological counterculture, right along with the people who joyfully rewrite Microsoft code or reedit Star Wars movies to make them better. One of the leading food hackers is Marc Powell of San Francisco, a member of the Bay Area's hacker/artist/activist community. Powell is a resident of Unicorn Precinct XIII, a self-described "home to artists, musicians, hackers, anarchists, spiritualists, freaks, cooks, and family." The 29-year-old maintains a blog (www.foodhacking.com) that chronicles his ongoing experiments. One recent post describes Powell's demonstration of making a frigid almond-brandy sweet foam, cooled with liquid nitrogen, at a Dorkbot event - a kind of hootenanny for technogeeks. Of course, Powell also has access to a 200-mph blender, five computers, and a naturally synthesized substance called meat glue when he's concocting his delicacies.

For Powell, there's no major difference between the kind of cooking he's doing now and the computer hacking he has done in the past. "Chefs are a lot like hardware hackers," he writes. "Both geek out, absorbing the specs [of the vegetables or the technology] for the purpose of creating something that nobody else has" - an innovative food or a new machine.