The New Secret Chicken Recipe? Animal Cells.

Here’s an early taste of the laboratory-grown meat that companies are racing to bring to market, and a look at the questions it raises about how we feed ourselves.

EMERYVILLE, Calif. — Until I read the release form, I wasn’t concerned that the bite of sautéed chicken breast I was about to eat had taken less than three weeks to grow from a few cells inside a laboratory tank to a thick sheet of meat.

Would I assume full responsibility, the form asked, for any personal injury, property damage or death that came from ingesting meat “whose properties are not completely known”?

I was in the airy test kitchen and production center that Upside Foods opened four months ago in a Bay Area residential shopping district as part of its quest to sell chicken grown from animal stem cells, first in the United States and then globally. They hope other foods, including beef, duck and lobster, won’t be far behind.