Costa Rica’s most famous astronaut – and arguably the country’s most famous person – has helped the Four Seasons create a space-inspired five-course meal that includes a sauce made with chunks of meteorite.
“What if there was a way to experience the wonder of space without ever leaving Earth,” asks Franklin Chang, the first-ever Latin American astronaut and a NASA Hall of Fame inductee, in a promotional video set to celestial music. “What if we could give new meaning to the phrase ‘dining under the stars?’ So together with the chefs at Four Seasons Costa Rica we created a truly unique dining experience. It’s called ‘Taste the Stars.'”
Four Seasons guests won’t be served actual astronaut food, or anything close to what Chang ate on his seven space missions between 1986 and 2002. Instead, the hotel chain hired Chang to consult with their chefs on space concepts such as weightlessness, extreme temperatures, fluid dynamics, darkness and luminosity. The dinner is served outdoors along with a telescope, and menu items include ingredients such as “lime caviar stars,” “illuminated coconut” and “chocolate mango asteroids.”
As People Magazine has reported in its “Great Ideas” column, the surf and turf dish also involves a special sauce prepared with a Chilean cabernet sauvignon called Meteorito, which is fermented in a barrel with a small, 4.5 billion-year-old space rock. The meteorite apparently came from somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.
“With [Chang’s] successful 25-year career as a NASA astronaut, including a world record of seven space flights, you’ve never had a more qualified man design your meal,” explains the Four Seasons website. And you’ll pay accordingly.
The meal costs $195 per person, plus tax.
