Carving from vegetables and fruits - the second life of the gifts of nature
The word "carving" comes from the English carving, which means "carving". You can cut beautiful things from wood, paper, but we are interested in carving from fresh vegetables and fruits.
This is a rather old tradition that originated in Thailand when it was necessary to decorate the table for the Festival of Floating Lanterns. Now, whole competitions are being held, where people cut out real masterpieces from simple watermelons, which they don't even want to eat! In some schools of the CIS countries and Europe, carving is taught to children in the classroom. They do this for a reason, because he develops fine motor skills and perseverance. Also, in the future, such education will help to beautifully decorate tables without outside help.
Carving from vegetables and fruits
Almost any fresh vegetables, fruits and berries are suitable for carving. You can highlight, for example:
- potatoes;
- radish;
- pumpkin (after all, many carved faces on pumpkins for Halloween);
- cucumbers;
- apples;
- citrus;
- watermelons;
- melons;
- avocado.
This is just a rough selection of products.
Some craftsmen make stunning edible chrysanthemums from Chinese cabbage!
If you decide to master the skill of transforming vegetables and fruits, you can start with a step-by-step photo of apple carving for beginners.
Watermelon
This is the most common material for creating paintings and compositions. It can be used to make huge dahlia-like flowers and a basket for serving other fruits. You can even cut pictures on it!
Watermelon is highly prized by carvers for its contrasting colors and pliability. You can practice on it perfectly and move on to more complex fruits and vegetables.
Chinese cabbage and cucumbers
As mentioned above, excellent chrysanthemums can be cut from Peking cabbage and supplemented with cucumber leaves. Such decoration will be appropriate for any festive table. Just imagine: such a slice of freshness among the stuffiness of mayonnaise salads!
Tomatoes, radishes
These flowers are great for a snack and are quite simple to perform. Your guests will definitely love the beautifully chopped fresh vegetables.
Vegetable cuts
Tired of simple tomato and cucumber slices on vegetable plates? You can make a refreshing and impressive composition! For example, cut roses from radishes and tomatoes, make flowers from the finest slices of cucumber, create pansies from carrots. Parsley, dill or cilantro will be a great addition to such an original serving of ordinary vegetable salad.
You can sprinkle olive oil on the cut out compositions.
Different vegetable cuts are distinguished by their type:
- straws
- sticks
- cubes
- shredding
- slices
- in pieces
- circles
- at an angle
- decorative (flowers, paintings, etc.)
Types of fruit and vegetable carving
There are different vegetable and fruit compositions for different celebrations. For instance:
- children's matinee / birthday;
- wedding;
- anniversary / corporate;
- home feast.
Children will be happy to see cute eggplant penguins, pear hedgehogs, pumpkin chanterelles or an interesting pineapple vase with fruit flowers placed in it. Children will not find fault with much. The main thing is that it is tasty and original!
More delicate flower arrangements are suitable for a wedding. They can be made from both fruits and vegetables. The table will be decorated with salads from both with extraordinary flowers using the carving technique.Which newlyweds will give up delicate chrysanthemums, roses and tulips?
If you are tired of banal cakes with inscriptions, there is a great solution: a watermelon, on which will be carved: "Happy anniversary!" or just something nice. Much more original, right? And there is a big plus! Not a single guest will recover from such a dessert!
At home, you can walk around to your heart's content! If at previous celebrations, adults want to see everything as beautiful and professional as possible, then at intimate gatherings they will forgive you a slightly uneven petal, an accidentally cut stem, and slight sloppiness. Much more important is that you did it for the guests, thought about them, decided to bring beauty to their lives. After all, on such holidays people are not obliged to anything, they do everything on their own. There is only their will and imagination!
Autumn compositions
It's autumn, which means you need to think about autumn compositions of fruits and vegetables using the carving technique! The first thing that comes to mind is, of course, Halloween. Pumpkins are beautiful red-haired creatures that fit perfectly into the colors of autumn. In addition, it is a very high quality material for carving, as it is hard on the outside and dense on the inside.
But from it you can make not only "Jack", but also original vases for autumn leaves, berries (red and chokeberry). The pumpkin is ready to become a "basket" not only for the autumn gifts of nature, but also for red and burgundy vegetables. They are perfect for making dahlias, asters and other autumn flowers from them.
If there are no rowan or viburnum in the garden, then a watermelon will help you! Yes, it was he! If done correctly, it will resemble a green basket with a bunch of crumbly red berries.
Of course, the autumn mood will be created by compositions of carrots, beets, tomatoes, which will be turned into wonderful bouquets and will burn on the table with all the colors of golden autumn! Green cucumber straws or lettuce leaves are sometimes added to them. The great thing is that carrots cut into thin slices can also be useful for creating elongated leaves with slots and veins. Such autumn compositions of vegetables will dilute the rainy blues.
Some buds are planted on skewers and you get real fire flowers! They can serve as a supplement to the finished flower arrangement, or they can be quite independent.
Recommendations
Finally, small recommendations for those who want to seriously engage in such a craft. Don't be afraid to fantasize and don't be afraid to make mistakes! It is important to discard the thought that something will not work. Everything will come with practice. The more you do, the better you get. Moreover, special knives have now been invented (but, unfortunately, the set is quite expensive), there are a bunch of books, videos on the Internet.
Do you want to please your friends and loved ones with vegetable fantasies? Then feel free to take a sharp knife in your hands and rather learn to make simple roses! Gradually move on to dahlias, cornflowers. Make little animals, baskets. Fantasy is important here! And the skill will come, it is only important to want to endure and work (which is wonderful and teaches carving).