A Sumptuous, Surreal Dinner of Edible Data Visualizations

It’s thought that as many as one in four Japanese men aged 30 or older hasn’t had sex. Perhaps that fact is sad for them, but it was a treat for attendees at a recent and highly unusual dinner, who feasted on a delicious representation of Japan’s virginity made from sesame, seaweed, and buttery white chocolate.

Yes, the folks responsible for the strangest trend in data nerdom—visualizations you chew and swallow—were at it again these past two weekends in Basel and Berlin. As with previous European events, chefs whipped up toothsome, puzzling dishes about population stats and economic trends, turning the Greek economy into a black olive-gruyere dip, for example, and Switzerland’s honeybee crisis into an almond panna cotta sprinkled with bee pollen.