There is a steel thali with two crispy looking medu vadas and four snow white idlis. Dosa lover? Not to disappoint you, there is a thin paper roast with three different chutneys waiting for you. Hungry already? There is more. You can also find a double layered moist chocolate cream cake, slices of rainbow cake and some sausages with baked beans.
But wait for the bad news, you cannot eat any of it. In fact, all of these are so tiny that a couple of these could easily fit inside a three-year-old’s palm. The creator of these non-edible, yet captivating miniatures is Rupashree Adam, a 20-year-old Fine Arts graduate from Chennai. A big foodie herself, Rupa started making these tiny models three years ago.
“These days you see miniatures of almost everything. I started making them in the first year of college. I was very busy with college work then and my father would ask me to concentrate on studies. So I used to make them at night,” says Rupa. Now that she has graduated from her, she has more time to make these yummy models.
Being a Chennaiite herself, she is keen on making more miniatures of the authentic South indian food, “You usually see miniatures of western cuisines and could get help about it online. I haven’t seen anyone try a miniature of South Indian food. I want to popularise these. Also, I’m trying to do something new,” she says.
After watching a few Youtube tutorials initially, she went through a lot of trial-and-error before she got the models to come out nicely. Most of these miniatures are accompanied by tiny bits of cutlery which she imports from Hong Kong or China.
Incidentally, Rupa uses polymer clay to make the miniatures, and on average, she takes around half an hour to make a model. But something as complex as a dosa or a cake would take her around 2-3 hours. “I try to make them as real as possible. If it doesn’t look real, then there is no point,” she says. These little plates of food are very delicate and Rupa says that one should not expose them to sunlight, nor drop them.
An aspiring chef who loves to bake, she is all set to fly to New Zeland in September to study the culinary arts. Time for some real food!
Reach Out: charmingminiatures.com