Introduction:
In China, there have been had a long history to carve on the food, it is about in the era of Chunqiu. the ‘carving egg’ was mentioned in the book of Guanzi, it is just to carve and draw on eggs, maybe it is the earliest food carving all over the world. The skill was come down, till today. In the era of Suitang, people chased on crisp cheese, eggs, fat, and decorat- ed them on rice. In the era of Song, it became a fashion to have the carved food on the feast, the carved food included the sweetmeat made by fruits, ginger, and bamboo shoot, bird, animal, bug and fish with any post and pavilion. Although it showed the extravagant life of the nobility bureaucracy, it also showed the ingenious skill of chef at that time. To the era of Qian and Jiao, on the feast in Yangzhou, chef carved the ‘watermelon light’, which is specially supplied to enjoy, but not to eat; during the mid-autumn when people enjoyed the moon in Peking, watermelon was carved into lotus petal, furth- ermore, there were more that were carved into white gourd cup and watermelon cup, the Huai soup was the first among the melon lights, Guangdong was the most famous place for the white gourd cup, the melon skin was carved the veins, it was loaded delicious food in the flesh, enjoyed the melon and ate the food in it, which is very special. All of these showed Chinese chef’s high skill and artful thought, as same as the jade carving, stone carving in industrial arts, food carving is an art full of poetry, till today, it is still applauded by foreign friends ‘Chinese chef’s stunt’ and ‘the bright phearl of eastern catering art’.
|
