Play With Your Food [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Joost Elffers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1997

How many times have you picked up a fruit or vegetable and laughed at how much it resembles an animal or person? Play with Your Food shows you how to look at something ordinary and turn it into something magical. No special tools or techniques are needed, just you -- and your child's -- imagination.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

You can play with your food. In fact, you should. All the details are in Joost Elffert's remarkable Play with Your Food, which introduces readers to a new way of seeing the food they eat, then shows them how to transform that food into creatures of extraordinary personality.

Put a navel orange on its side, pip facing you. See anything yet? What do the folds suggest? Carve ovals and insert beans and sliced almonds--voila, two eyes. Cut ears from the sides of the orange and pull them forward. Now you have it--a cat's face of amazing and endearing character. But that's only the beginning. Learn to make artichoke-leaf aphids, bok choy buffalos, okra grasshoppers, green-pepper camels, and pear mice--just a few of the 75 ingenious projects.

Consisting primarily of color photos of the creatures, first in portraiture and then in step-by-step "recipes" for their creation, Play with Your Food teaches readers above all to see. In addition to limning techniques, the minimal text provides a short look at manmade and natural imagery that suggests or embodies the possibilities of metamorphosis. Then it's on to the creatures themselves and the fun of constructing them. Anyone who enjoys play and the magic of transformation will want Joost's book--and having seen it, will never look at eatables in the same way again. --Arthur Boehm

Product Details

• Hardcover: 109 pages
• Publisher: Stewart Tabori & Chang; illustrated edition edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556706308
• ISBN-13: 978-1556706301
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #610,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolute hoot and imaginative adventure, August 7, 2002

By 

Catherine S. Vodrey (East Liverpool, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Play With Your Food (Hardcover)

Joost Elffers's terrific "Play with Your Food" is a wacky trip inside the imagination of someone who is equally obsessed with food and faces. Elffers, a Dutchman, has a typically European flair for the dramatic and shows it off to great effect with the fruits and vegetables he chooses to showcase in this marvelous book.

Picture, if you will, a wee family of bears carved out of zucchini--or a pensive carrot couple glancing askance at each other--or a shy banana. Crazy as it sounds, these things are not only possible but positively enchanting. Elffers manages to give each little edible face some human expression so that the photographs seem to show us not something we might find on our salad plate (or in our fruit bowl) but something we might see across the breakfast table as we look at our spouse or children.

Elffers's sense of humor and inventiveness is captivating. Highly recommended for anyone who dislikes eating their vegetables--they just might enjoy gazing at their vegetables instead, if Elffers is in charge!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Adorable reasons to play with your food, January 27, 2002

By 

Jae Brodsky - See all my reviews

This review is from: Play With Your Food (Hardcover)

My mother always stopped me from playing with my food. This book shows why she was completely wrong! From the front cover, with the cute lemon bear, through the pear rabbits and snow pea insects, to the winking pumpkin on the back cover, this book will astound you with its creativity.

The first part of Play with Your Food is an essay on the difference between seeing and looking. The main and largest part is photographs of hundreds of food animals made by the authors. The last part is examples and instructions on how to make your own food animals. It's fascinating to see how one can change a face from happy to sad to angry with only the small adjustment of eyes carved from almonds.

Play with Your Food is one of the only cute, adorable books I've ever read or looked at that hasn't made me ill. It provides laughter and creative project ideas for people of all ages. From toddlers to octogenarians, this book will delight.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this book!, October 19, 2000

By 

Jennifer Niedermeier (Whitmore Lake, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Play With Your Food (Hardcover)

This is such a fun book! It is a great coffee table book or children's gift. My children (ages 1, 4, 4, and 6) can sit and browse through it for the longest time. My one year old thinks it is absolutely hilarious and it's wonderful for encouraging the imagination. We have lots of fun making our own silly people and faces with food. I have given this book as a gift to other children before and, although the kids always like it, the adults at the party always seem to spend the most time looking at it. Definitely one of my favorite books.