Food Carving: Teaching and Learning. Character Modeling: Character Modeling

Author: Zhang Weixin
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-05-01
Features: Food carving is a culinary activity that uses hard materials such as vegetables, fruits, and soft materials like dough, sugar, and butter as its subjects. With tools such as food carving knives, dough shaping knives, oil shaping knives, and ice shaping knives, it employs techniques like cutting, slicing, turning, hollowing, and carving, as well as shaping methods like kneading, rolling, pasting, pressing, and molding, to create artistic forms from the food itself. It organically combines cooking and art, making culinary works both edible and artistically appealing, and is a unique gem in China's sculptural art garden.
The "Teaching and Learning of Food Carving" series—comprising Floral Modeling, Bird Modeling, Mammal Modeling, Human Modeling, Dragon and Phoenix Modeling, and Dough Shaping Modeling—has been published. This is another work by our unit's young culinary teacher, Comrade Zhang Weixin, following his book Chinese Banquet Food Carving. Over the years, he has diligently studied, actively pursued innovation, and achieved remarkable accomplishments in Chinese cooking, particularly in the field of food carving. He has won numerous awards in national and provincial/municipal competitions, published multiple culinary books, and his works have been featured in various newspapers and magazines. He has also been invited by CCTV for an exclusive interview. In addition to teaching, he is often invited to design and create large-scale banquet display stages for hotels and restaurants such as the Great Wall Hotel and Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant, receiving unanimous praise.
The "Teaching and Learning of Food Carving" series is characterized by the following:
1. Pioneering Awareness and Thought Leadership: The series reflects the author's new understanding and insights into food carving, believing it will guide readers into a new realm of food carving art. The author has persistently studied and explored knowledge in areas such as cooking, folklore, arts and crafts, food ingredients, historical geography, and architectural design, continuously innovating and expanding. His knife techniques are refined, his skills are proficient, and his carved works feature ingenious concepts, vivid shapes, and a touch of creativity, often standing out with their uniqueness.
2. Novel Format and Comprehensive Content: The series showcases unique ingenuity in both content and form, deviating from conventional approaches. It categorizes various themes such as flowers, birds, figures, mammals, dragons and phoenixes, and dough shaping into separate volumes, providing detailed elaborations.
3. Unique Techniques and Clever Designs: In addition to teaching conventional methods like piercing, turning, and straight cutting, as well as shaping techniques like kneading, rolling, and pressing, the book emphasizes new techniques such as scoring, hollow carving, tremble cutting, wrapping, and filling. These techniques are simple to learn, highly practical, and easy to operate, enabling readers to master and apply food carving skills more quickly and effectively.