Food Art

Food Art is the art of modifying, processing, arranging, and decorating food to enhance its aesthetic appeal. In other words, creating beautiful and unbelievable models(animal, Bird, Statue, Face etc)

with food is called food art and many people have taken interest in this profession. The main factor of Food Art is visual presentation. The visual presentation of foods is often considered by chefs at

many different stages of food presentation, from the manner of tying or sewing meats, to the type of cut used in chopping and slicing meats or vegetables, to the style of mold used in a poured dish. The food itself may be decorated as in elaborately iced cakes, topped with ornamental sometimes sculptural consumables, drizzled with sauces, sprinkled with seeds, powders, or other toppings, or

it may be accompanied by edible or inedible garnishes.

One of the renowned Food Art,is Japanese food art. Among the key elements in this presentation style are mukimono --the decorative garnishes and carvings that add the final flourish to a dish. It might be a carrot round in the shape of a plum blossom. Or a scattering of cherry blossoms plucked from a radish. Perhaps a swallow, a butterfly, a ginkgo leaf or a cluster of pine needles. Whatever the motif, it will have been created to delight the eye and the palate with its shape, color, and taste.

The arrangement and overall styling of food upon bringing it to the plate is termed plating. Some common styles of plating include a 'classic' arrangement of the main item in the front of the plate with vegetables or starches in the back, a 'stacked' arrangement of the various items, or the main item leaning or 'shingled' upon a vegetable bed or side item. Item location on the plate is often referenced as for the face of a clock, with six o'clock the position closest to the diner. A basic rule of thumb upon plating, and even in some cases prepping, is to make sure you have the 5 components to a dish; protein, traditionally at a 6 o'clock position, vegetable, at a 2 o'clock position, starch at an 11 o'clock position, sauce and garnish.

Food decoration can also get bizarre. Food Art and decoration is often used in advertisements,presenting the product as delicious and beautiful as possible. It needs a lot of imagination to make something cute or funny with food.

The most commonly known Food Art is Cake Art. Decorating a cake usually involves covering it with some form of icing and then using decorative sugar, candy, chocolate or icing decorations to embellish the cake. But it can also be as simple as sprinkling a fine coat of icing sugar or drizzling a glossy blanket of glaze over the top of a cake. Icing decorations can be made by either piping icing flowers and decorative borders or by molding gum paste, fondant, or marzipan flowers and figures. Fondant allows the baker to express creativity in baking. Fondant exists in many different colors, and its initial form is soft and easy to handle. In this form, cake decorators are able to mold fondant into many different artistic expressions. Many of these expressions are also taught in professional cake decorating classes. Fondant is primarily used to cover cakes, but it is also used to create individual show pieces for cakes. Gumpaste is a substance used in cake decorating to create flower decorations. Royal Icing is a sweet white icing made by whipping fresh egg whites (or powdered egg whites, meringue powder) with icing sugar. Royal icing produces well-defined icing edges and is ideal for piping intricate writing, borders, scrollwork and lacework on cakes. It dries very hard and preserves indefinitely if stored in a cool, dry place, but is susceptible to soften and wilt in high humidity. Marzipan is often used for modeling cake decorations and as a base covering underneath fondant. Professional institutes, such as Le Cordon Bleu , have begun segregating their cookery schools to create completely separate institutes, dedicated to cake-making.

Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_presentation