Don't Play with your Food!

Those of my age, in their fifties and older, will know all too well the parental mainstay comment that, when sat at the family dinner table, children must not play with their food.

The motivation to toy with the baked beans, sculpt the mashed swede, carve a carrot or flick a detestable sprout so that it rolled under the sideboard at the far reaches of the room was usually down to boredom, the desire to spark off a food fight with siblings or just to try to avoid having to eat something that you just didn’t like. 

The other regular parental retort was of course about children in other parts of the world who would welcome such a feast to which you could risk a reply of “well, send it to them then” with the ultimate sanction of a slap or banishment to your room. 

In my childhood, being one of five, you learned to eat quickly to make sure of your share and also take pole position in the pecking order if there were any seconds. 

There was little actual time to play with the contents of your plate. 

Also if you did not eat what was given to you then you went hungry and so any creative flair in what is now known as food architecture was never explored. 

That might explain why I am a Chartered Surveyor and not a renowned creator of fantastic artworks in confectionery, sugar work, jelly or any other culinary medium. 

I am therefore a bit jealous of someone of my own age who has established himself as an artist, photographer and creator of what are known as foodscapes. 

He is Carl Warner, a Liverpudlian by birth who studied at Maidstone College of Art in Kent and in the late 1990’s was inspired by the similarity of a Portobello mushroom to trees in an African landscape to explore the fantasy elements of a world of food. 

Other iconic artists have sought their artistic muse in the natural world, historic events, personalities, religious and cultural events.Warner has seen the same great potential as subjects for works of art from the contents of the display shelves of greengrocers, fishmongers and shopkeepers in general. 

The shapely and verdant appearance of Broccoli on the stalk has a striking resemblance to small, gnarly trees. 

Aubergines can depict submarines, new potatoes and soda bread double up as rocks and boulders, curly kale can be fashioned into rainforest and dense vegetation, coconuts are fantasy haystacks, Romano Peppers in an upright position are a dead ringer for Mediterranean Cypress, fortune cookies can resemble folded rugs, ribeye beef joints make convincing mountains ranges, seaweed gives an authentic look of a house roof, turmeric gives a yellowish tint as if a dusty trailway. Celery sticks take on a pantile appearance, black eye beans make a stone wall, carrots are tree trunks, swiss cheese makes Egyptian Pyramids and Kit Kat fingers are ideal for railway tracks.

As you can see, the creative possibilities are endless. 

Warner’s Foodscapes have included Big Ben and The London Eye made out of green beans and rhubarb for spokes respectively. 

Another work has depicted a seascape which on closer scrutiny is made from smoked salmon. 

The work involved to create in food is time consuming and labour intensive but understandable if you have at any time tried to pin, glue or wire an avocado , some dried cannellini beans or potato slices onto anything. Who can say that they haven't tried it at some time in their lives?

The closest I may have come as a youngster to being an accidental food architect was the time I pushed a few peas against a fish finger, made a cube out of Smash and claimed to have made a Moon Buggy as seen in Space 1999- my favourite TV show back in the 1970’s. Ah, happy days.