The very best chefs are not mere cooks, they are also chemists, engineers and of course, artists. Ángel León is one of these, always curious, always looking to find new ways to create culinary sensations.

He wants to go deeper to find something you didn’t know existed: “What’s more hedonistic, eating something no one on the face of the earth has ever tried, or eating another f-cking spoon of caviar?”

Cádiz’s native son has dedicated his life to the sea, Chef del Mar, the locals call him, approaching the ocean like most chefs approach the farm. Seafood is not just fish and mussels, there’s also plants with roots and leaves and fruit and one of these is chef Léon’s latest focus - Zostera marina.

But now, he believes he’s discovered the centerpiece of his ambitious dream: fields of rice stretched out for miles of paddies, the feathery stalks - protruding from the sea itself. Scientists have long identified seagrasses as one of the most vital ecosystems in the fight against climate change, but what few knew is that those blades of grass also contain clusters of small, edible grains with massive potential.

With more research, effort, and with any luck, eelgrass could be cultivated at scale and since it grows in salt water, which most of the water on Earth is, there is room to grow.

via Time Magazine
photo courtesy of Paolo Verzone—VU for TIME