Bibi's Box

The adorable taro root mice bellow were created by Jimmy Zhang, a chef and produce artist in San Francisco. The image is part of The New York Times‘ slideshow Playing With Food, which also includes more images of food turned into art by James Parker, Hugh McMahon and Saxton Freymann. It’s part of the article Knife Skills: Creating Feasts for the Eyes by Kate Murphy. She presents the carved watermelon sculptures by Mr. Parker and explains the growth of those kind of creations using fruits and vegetables:

“We’re seeing more fruit and vegetable entries every year that are incredibly creative,” said Thomas Smyth, chairman of the Salon of Culinary Art, an annual competition sponsored by the Société Culinaire Philanthropique in New York. Recent eye-catchers, he said, have included melons carved to look like Fabergé eggs and lifelike cocktails made of butternut squash, carrots and papaya.

Probably part of the “guilty” of the current appetite for whimsical produce art belongs to Saxton Freymann, which published in 1997 book Play With Your Food, with pictures of brussels sprouts pigs, broccoli poodles and lemony bears. The article also presents a video with Hugh McMahon carving the portrait of James Beard in a watermelon.
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