China has a long history of carving food, which can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period. There are two kinds of raw materials commonly used in food carving. One kind is delicate, solid, crisp and pure-colored vegetables such as roots, stems, leaves, melons and fruits. The other is cooked food that can be eaten and enjoyed, such as egg products. But the most commonly used is the former category.

China has always been called the culinary kingdom, and this laurel should be said to be worthy of the name. Because China's cooking history is better than that of ancient Egypt and Rome.

The history is longer. With a vast territory and numerous nationalities, China has a profound food culture. Typical is the well-known art of food carving.

Food carving is the artistic memory of carving plants, animals, figures, flowers, scenic buildings and so on with cooking materials to beautify dishes and decorate banquets. Even though he is a part of cooking technology, he is a unique artistic sculpture in an art shop. Art comes from life and transcends it.

Food carving is the crystallization of art, and it is also a dazzling flower left over from China's 5,000-year cooking culture. Sculpture mainly focuses on form and spirit. A shape is the shape of a specific thing. If exaggeration is omitted, or the shape is shaped in an anthropomorphic way, then the spirit must be shown after the shape is set. Food carving must be fast, because the nature of this industry determines. It used to beautify dishes and decorate banquets. Ordinary food sculptures have to practice hard for five or six years before they can complete some simple works independently.

The long-lost blindfold carving was done after blindfold, so it was also done in the dark. And the long-lost blindfolded carving makes the chefs far behind. Food carving plays an important role in today's fierce hotel competition, especially by skillfully using all kinds of cooking knowledge and skills, and at the same time integrating the advantages of food carving from all over the world, showing its exquisite food carving skills. For example: blindfold carving, blindfold kneading, blindfold Longxu Noodles and other unique skills. These chefs with unique skills have attracted the attention and admiration of their peers in the industry. These unique skills are the flexible application of cooking knowledge and the precipitation of knowledge.

Integral sculpture

Integral sculpture, also known as three-dimensional sculpture, is an artistic image of carving raw materials into a solid body, which is difficult and demanding in carving techniques and has the characteristics of realism and practicality.

alleviate

Relief, as its name implies, is a method of carving pictures on the surface of raw materials. There are also female relief and male relief. Gravure relief is to insert a V-shaped line pattern on the surface of raw materials with a V-shaped knife, which is more convenient to operate; Male relief is to cut off the extra parts outside the picture, leaving a "convex" shape, which is higher than the surface. This method is laborious, but the effect is good. In addition, the relief pattern can be promoted layer by layer according to the design requirements of the picture to achieve higher artistic effect. This method is suitable for carving pavilions, figures, landscapes and so on. It has the characteristics of semi-solid and semi-relief, and it is very difficult and demanding.

scoop

Hollow out, generally on the basis of relief (formation), cut off the extra parts outside the picture, so as to show the pattern of the picture more vividly. Such as "watermelon lamp" and so on.

Die buckle

The mold buckle here refers to the food models of various animals, plants and other external contours. Made of stainless steel plate or copper sheet. When in use, the carving raw materials can be cut into thick pieces, pressed hard on the raw materials with a model knife for molding, and then the raw materials are cut piece by piece, or used as side dishes or embellished on the edge of the plate. If it is a cooked product, such as cake and ham, it can be eaten directly.

The best practice tools for beginners of food carving are the main knife, U-shaped knife, inserting knife and white radish. Eat fruit mixed, pay attention to the plate. When edging, the embedded part should be less than 65,438+0 of the whole plate.

Zero engraving assembly

Food carving method: the so-called zero carving assembly is the process of carving whole parts with one or more raw materials and then assembling them together to form a complete body. This process is also called piecework (or combined carving). ?

The combination of food carving and zero carving aims to solve the shortage of some carving materials in volume, size, length and other aspects and the monotony of colors, so as to make the works look more complete and colorful, thus increasing the artistic imagination space of food carving composition and modeling and laying the foundation for creating large-scale carving works. The assembly of spare parts is complicated, and the proportion of spare parts and the whole part in each part should be appropriate, that is, the size, length and height should be coordinated. When assembling, we should assemble accurately according to the specific position of the conceived object, so as to make the work more perfect and unified, thus highlighting the artistic effect of the work. ?

Essentials of food carving

The steps of zero carving assembly are: carving the main part first, then carving the secondary foil part (copy), then carving the decorative ornament part, and finally assembling the image around the theme, that is, installing the main part first, then installing the secondary foil part. The key points of its operation are: we should not only pay attention to the overall image of the carving concept and the selection, collocation and combination of each component in color and texture, but also pay attention to the proportion coordination among each component. For example, taking the work "Birthday for a Group of Cranes" as an example, firstly, an old pumpkin with an arc bracket is selected as the main part for carving modeling, and the heads, necks, bodies and long legs of cranes in various postures are arranged on the pumpkin reasonably, and the body contours of the cranes are carved one by one with a carving knife, and then the wings of the cranes are carved according to the images of cranes in different postures, and then toothpicks are inserted on the cranes in different postures, and the eyes are decorated with acacia beans. The theme of this work is prominent, the layers are distinct, and the color collocation is harmonious and natural. It is assembled by integral carving, and its conception is a model of zero carving assembly. Another example is "Phoenix spreads its wings" and "Eagle spreads its wings", which require us to stand out when spreading our wings. However, the selection of materials is limited by the size, height and length of raw materials, so it is necessary to use the combined assembly skills of integral carving and zero carving to create. For example, the head, neck, body, tail, legs and claws of Phoenix and Eagle are carved as a whole, and then the wings are carved separately, and assembled on the whole part through docking, embedding and other technologies. Common sculpture works include vase, welcome flower basket, fruit basket, plum blossom parrot, swan and egret flying high. When creating, most of them need to be combined by piecemeal carving. ?