clipped from www.nytimes.com
Playing With Food
Some culinary trend watchers say the current appetite for whimsical produce art may have started with Saxton Freymann's work in the 1997 book, "Play With Your Food." His brussels sprouts pigs, broccoli poodles and bok choy fish have been featured on greeting cards, calendars and in several subsequent books.
Ordinary carrots become parrots in a sculpture by Jimmy Zhang, a chef and produce artist in San Francisco.
Mr. Zhang, who is regarded as a master of this kind of art, transformed taro root into rats ...
... and into a stallion. Jicama, daikon, rutabaga and taro are favored for carving three-dimensional figures because they are firm and don't brown.
In the hands of James Parker, another of the leading talents in fruit and vegetable carving, a Meridol papaya turns into a flower.
Golden beet butterflies sit on an intricate watermelon flower by Mr. Zhang.
Mr. Parker creates centerpieces that cost thousands of dollars for restaurants, resorts, caterers and individual clients.
Hugh McMahon uses watermelons to depict the artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
Mr. McMahon's work will be displayed in a photography exhibition at the James Beard Foundation next month.
Many chefs, bored by the precisely defined tasks that often characterize their work at restaurants or catering operations, carve fruits and vegetables as a creative release. A work by Jimmy Zhang.
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