Brown explained how he proposed to out-beef the beef industry. He would break the challenge down into its component parts: how to replicate the smell, the consistency, the taste, and the appearance of a real beef burger. Once you analyzed each question separately, an apparently impossible ambition became a set of soluble problems. For example, the clover-root juices would drip like blood onto hot coals; they would turn from red to brown as they sizzled on a barbecue. Dr. Frankenstein had met Ray Kroc. Nobody would eat ground cow flesh again.

