On the corner of 51st and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, the aroma of charcoal-burnished lamb hangs enticingly in the winter air above Midtown’s halal carts. Alas, I can’t stop for a snack. I have a reservation down the block at Le Bernardin, that temple of pristine French seafood helmed by Eric Ripert. Tonight, however, I’m not going for the delicate skate wing or sea trout. Ripert is the first chef in New York City to be cooking with Nature’s Fynd, which is not seafood at all, but a protein fermented from an extremophilic fungal microbe (Fusarium strain flavolapis or “yellow stone,” nicknamed Fy) discovered by NASA-funded scientists in an acidic hot spring in Yellowstone National Park.