Galvin crop

It’s not that I don’t like strawberries.

Strawberries — at least, strawberry flavoring — and I go way back. It’s just that, over time, my affection started to wane and they reciprocated by numbing my tongue and making what I was trying to say undecipherable.

(And before you ask, I do not consume strawberries each week before beginning to type.)

Now, however, thanks to either — depending on your point of view — the marvels or masochism of modern science, I might once again share in savoring strawberries with my favorite housemate.

No … not the cat.

According to a recent article in the journal Science of Food, researchers at Columbia University have created a seven-layer strawberry cheesecake out of thin air.

Well, not literal thin air … we’re not talking Star Trek replicators here. Besides, those replicators couldn’t even produce a suitable synthetic Scotch.

Instead, the recipe Columbia’s cheesecake whizzes followed included mixing cartridges of seven edible food inks — graham cracker, peanut butter, Nutella, banana puree, strawberry jam, cherry drizzle and “frosting” — fold in some fancy-pants math, run it through a laser-guided 3D printer, a laser, and … voila!

I bet your mouth watered at the mere mention of “edible food inks.”

Individual slices come together through creating multi-tiered structures on basic architectural shapes! Yum! To wit, the texturally heavier layers — graham crackers, Nutella, Soylent Green and the like — establish a foundation on which the lighter elements — jam, drizzle, “frosting” — can exist without, you know, becoming an ink-stained mess.

Reading the report made me hungry … for the strawberries of yore, when getting messy was part of the joy.

Coming home as a wee lad, after a grueling day of not listening to teachers, there was no better reward than to pour a glass of milk — real, honest to goodness, straight from the cow, no-lasers-involved milk — and plop in a tablespoon of pink strawberry powder.

No 3D printers were necessary to stir that magic elixir together, the perfect complement to the half-dozen or so Oreos I’d scoop from the cookie jar. The sugar intake alone would keep me going all night as I powered the house by riding a bicycle attached to a generator in the cellar.

I suppose I could get as accustomed to fabricated fruit as I was to the powder that promised “authentic strawberry flavor,” but where would be the romance in watching a printer produce properly proportioned puree?

Speaking of romance, one of the sure signs of summer where I grew up was the annual downtown Strawberry Festival — an event organized by the family of a youthful lass on whom I was particularly sweet.

We’d wander the grounds, stopping at the booths occupied by the owners of the pick-your-own fields that dotted our town, and share the edibles each had to offer.

On such a stroll, my tongue would be tied in knots, making what I was attempting to say indecipherable to her … which, looking back, had more to do with being a teenage boy than it did to a reaction to strawberry seeds.

These days, though, such a chemical imbalance has often resulted in my eating only the shortcake itself, with perhaps a dollop of whipped cream. Which is perhaps why the idea of 3D-engineered food fills me with equal parts fascination and dread.

“Its customizability makes it particularly practical for the plant-based meat market,” says the Columbias study’s lead author, Dr. Jonathan Blutinger, “where texture and flavor need to be carefully formulated to mimic real meats.”

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to carefully formulating the texture and flavor of what I put down my gullet, this grandson of a chef would really prefer it done the old-fashion way … with a dash of guesswork and a smidgen of feel.

Not so fast, rebuts Dr. Blutinger:

“Food prepared with less human handling,” he says, “could lower the risk of food-borne illnesses and disease transmission. This seems like a win-win concept for all of us.”

Well, except maybe the farmers and ranchers who feed America’s breadbasket. And those in the restaurant industry whose skills and livelihood would be threatened by the rise of the machines.

And, of course, those of us whose idea of a Sunday family dinner includes gathering in the kitchen and taking in the sights, sounds and smells of a meal being prepared — as opposed to standing zombified in front of a printer as a replica of my grandmother’s Lobster Newburg is squirted into existence.

Upon further reflection, if a disagreeable relationship to strawberries is the price I have to pay for a lifetime of food-based memories, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.