A noodle-shaving robot chef created by Cui Runquan makes noodles as good as those of any organic biped. Read on, if knife-wielding robots are not a problem for you.
(Noodle-shaving robot army)
For about about $1,500 U.S. dollars Chef Cui "can slice noodles better than human chefs and it is much cheaper than a real human chef," says Liu Maohu, a noodle shop owner in China. "It costs more than 30,000 RMB ($4,700 USD) to hire a chef for a year, but the robot just costs me 10,000 RMB ($1,500 USD). It is a great machine, and it is better than man." (Emphasis ours.)
So we know Chef Cui can work for hours on end, but how good are the noodles made by a robot when compared to a human? One customer at a noodle shop eating Chef Cui-made noodles said, "The noodles made by this robot are as good as the man-made ones."
(Noodle-shaving robot army video)
For almost one hundred years, sf fans have waited for the "mechanical apparatus" needed to prepare food without human intervention; consider Edgar Rice Burroughs who, in his 1912 story A Princess of Mars, wrote about them:
Kantos Kan led me to one of these gorgeous eating places where we were served entirely by mechanical apparatus. No hand touched the food from the time it entered the building in its raw state until it emerged hot and delicious upon the tables before the guests, in response to the touching of tiny buttons to indicate their desires.
(Read more about automated restaurants)
Anthony Boucher contributed to the idea of a robot chef in his 1943 story Robinc:
"Half your time in cooking is wasted reaching around for what you need next. We can build in a lot of that stuff. For instance, one tentacle can be a registering thermometer. tapering to a find point - stick it in a roast and - One can end in a broad spoon for stirring - heat resistant, of course. One might terminate in a sort of hand, of which each of the digits was a different-sized measuring spoon..
(Read more about Boucher's robot chef)
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