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Artist serves local delicacies on a canvas
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HANGZHOU-BASED artist Jin Minghua has combined her talent in the arts and love of cuisines to cook up a series of paintings and artworks that were recently exhibited at Palais des Nations, the United Nations Office in Geneva.
The over 40 paintings were mostly of Hangzhou delicacies, and a few of classical Chinese foods.
“Food is lifestyle, so is art,” says the 36-year-old Jin.
On the visitors’ guestbook, some of the comments described the paintings as “fascinating,” “bravo,” “I am mouthwatering,” and “What a pity, they are not real.”
It was not the first time that Jin has exhibited her food paintings abroad. The artist says that on several occasions “foreigners watched my works and told me ‘now I know what original and authentic Chinese foods look like’.”
“When the word ‘China’ is mentioned many people associate it with food,” according to Jin. “I am proud that I can promote Chinese culture internationally with my works.”
Jin, who calls herself a “foodie” and a “cook,” excels in making Hangzhou cuisine as well as wheaten foods. No wonder her paintings reflect the foods she made at home.
“Usually I cook, observe, eat and then paint. Why do I eat before painting them?
“Because I cannot help ...” she says with a laugh.
Jin does not merely paint by copying the foods she makes but by observing them and understanding the ingredients. Her paintings are also not photo-like, instead they are more like watercolor paintings.
Jin says she uses both gouache and dyes for traditional Chinese painting, and combines the technique of both Chinese and Western arts. Light colors and touches are employed to make the pictures appear not too strong or heavy.
Jin started learning traditional Chinese painting as a child, and then went to China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, where she studied printmaking for her bachelor’s degree, and painting for the master’s degree.
In Jin’s food painting series, the backgrounds in most of them are essentially Chinese elements. For instance, in the spring rolls painting, she uses Chinese paper cutting of the character chun (spring); in tangyuan (rice dumpling) there is a blue-and-white porcelain bowl; and for the eight-treasure rice, she uses a Buddhist decoration also known as eight treasures.
Jin says she started the series in 2014, and hasn’t stopped since.
In 2015, she compiled a book “Hangzhou Snacks,” which was released in both Chinese and English versions. At the end of 2016, a publishing house in Paris published Jin’s “Les Cuisine Chinoise est Delicieus” (the Chinese cuisines that are delicious).
“The more I paint, the more I realize it is just a tip of the iceberg,” Jin says.
The Hangzhou native says she will paint other cuisines like the spicy Sichuan cuisines and delicate Cantonese dishes, as well as Western foods.
The book “Les Cuisine Chinoise est Delicieus” includes Jin Minghua’s paintings, photos as well as recipes of Chinese dishes. Below are three simple recipes from the book.
Cucumber salad
Ingredients: two cucumbers (about half a pound), two garlics, 15ml rice vinegar (15ml), white sugar (10g), sesame oil
Recipe:
Cut cucumbers into sections of 2cm by 5cm; mince garlics; add everything into a salad bowl and mingle.
Egg crepe
Ingredients: flour (100g), two eggs, chive minced into 5mm sections (15g), salt (4g), water (90ml)
Recipe:
Mingle flour, egg, chive, salt and water till it becomes a paste; heat a pan with 5g of oil at 190 Celsius degrees, pour a ladle of paste (about 100g) into the pan, move the pan and let the paste trickle so as to form a round pancake. When the cake separates from the pan, turn it to the other side and wait for 25 seconds. Repeat the same operation till it uses up all the paste.
White-cut chicken leg
Ingredients: a chicken leg (400g), sliced ginger (10g), knotted chives (10g), Chinese yellow rice wine or red wine (10ml), water (400ml, able to cover the leg in pot), minced ginger (5g), minced coriander (3g), soy sauce (20ml), 3g of sugar; 5ml of olive oil
Recipe:
Put chicken leg, water, wine, sliced ginger, and knotted chives into a pot and then boil. After the water starts bobbling, boil it for three to five minutes. Turn off the fire and keep the leg in the pot for 15 to 20 minutes. Take the chicken leg out and put it into refrigerator for 10 minutes. Smear olive oil on the leg and cut it into small pieces.
For the sauce: peel ginger and then mince ginger and coriander together. Now mix it with coriander, sugar, soy sauce, and 10g of chicken soup (the one you just made) together as the sauce.
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