Mothers in Bengaluru are playing the hunger games with their demanding offspring who throw tantrums about eating their spinach. A pinch of humour, a dollop of ingenuity sautéed with imagination in a pot full of creativity is enough to turn bread portraiture into a girl’s face; mind you she’s togged up in a purple cabbage dress and has curly noodle hair. Rice-ducks float in sambhar.
Eggs moulded from potatoes sit tantalisingly in a nest of vermicelli. The magical mamas have hit on emoji-idlis, yoga-veggies, corn-Minions, chapati dough-bulldogs and gooseberries made from kesari bhath to delight children with some creative cooking. Online food groups such as Bangalore Foodies Club, Thindi Potharu Veg, Flavours of India, and Aduge Aramane Pure Veg are making food fun. “My daughter Aditi is five. In order to cut down her screen time, I started telling her stories at night and took cues from them to make food art during the day.
I made 10 Ravan faces with cookies and caterpillar idlis,” says homemaker Divya Shivkumar. Making food educational is an add on; she made a well with rice, drumsticks and coriander sprigs to show where the water comes from. This new pursuit has given mothers and children a chance to bond in a novel and exciting way. Sudha Kundapur’s 10-year-old daughter Diya helps her to make yellow roses from steamed rice flour, and Parijat flowers out of neer dosa batter and cubed carrots, all the while chatting, laughing and tasting. The end result is creating something meaningful together.
For children used to ordering in pizza, home cooked meals always come second. Monika Rajesh feels that the extra effort spent ideating and imagining unusual eats is worth it. “I have to keep chasing my 11-year-old son Yashas to get him to eat. When I turned a ragi mudde into a turtle, he came running. When I carved apples in the shape of doughnuts you should have seen his eyes light up. I made mehendi designs on chapatis using chocolate syrup. Food art has gotten Yashas interested in food,” laughs Rajesh. Her crowning glory is a Bal Ganesha chariot being driven by three mice made entirely with biscuits.
The sense of satisfaction obtained by handcrafting something unusual is unmatched, according to Sharmila G Venkatesh. From designing mundane rangolis and decorating birthday tables, her next step-up was making edible marvels. She would slice onions into the shape of a basket. Make pani puris from ragi mudde. Sculpt jasmine buds with rice flour and capsicum stalks. Kitchen scraps come in handy for entertainment snacks. Mama knows best and the kiddos are just lapping it up.
Snack on It
Vegetable carving is thought to have originated in South-east Asian countries such as Thailand, China or Japan. Later, the art found fans for weddings, parties, receptions, Halloween celebrations and big hotel events. Now, photo-sharing platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest as well as food support groups are inspiring people to become food artists.