When people say that cooking is an artform they rarely mean making toast. It’s a phrase mostly reserved for complicated dishes, something like a 3-course dinner or a very fancy tiered cake. But artist and designer Manami Sasaki proves that you can turn toast into art if that’s what you wish to do.
Manami works as a
designer for a company and in her free time does exhibitions of her
own art in art galleries. She usually paints with watercolors, but
during quarantine, she decided to apply her art skills to food.
Manami says that before the quarantine she would rarely think about
what she eats and would often skip meals or just eat something
quickly or on the go. Her goal was to minimize the amount of time
spent on food and maximize her working hours.
But having to
stay at home because of the world pandemic made her reconsider and
change her mind. These days she never skips breakfast. She wakes up
early and starts making her artful toast creations. It allows her to
pay more attention to what she eats and be grateful for the food and
the nourishment.
She buys the
ingredients for her toast art in the local market that’s next to
her house, she makes sure to never go far and stay at home as much as
possible. When creating her toast art Manami focuses both on the
visuals and on the taste too. In fact, she says she’s guilty of
being very elaborate with small details, but it doesn’t look good
on food, so she’s had to pull pack on her detail-oriented
perfectionism. Instead, she focuses on making it look like a piece of
art but also something that looks yummy and delicious.
She chooses her ingredients based not only on how they look but also on how they taste. Since the whole point of these creations is to make breakfast, it’s important that it not only looks but tastes good too. Manami also doesn’t use any artificial coloring for this project. All of her art-toasts are made from natural ingredients bought locally.
To create these
beautiful pieces of toast that are actually edible art she only needs
a butter knife and a needle for the small details. That’s all the
tools she needs to create these yummy masterpieces. But it takes her
quite a while.
Generally, she
spends about 3 hours to create one toast. Her creations are usually
inspired by her personal interests or other artists that she admires
and their artworks. After she’s done, Manami takes a photo of her
breakfast art and then toasts it in the oven and takes another
picture. This sometimes changes the art on her toast in the most
amusing way.
Manami makes
these every day for breakfast and posts the results on her Instagram.
And while most of us might think it’s too pretty to eat, Manami
says that she never feels bad for eating them because that was the
whole purpose from the beginning. Plus, they look and smell so
delicious that she can barely wait for a minute to take the photo
before she bites into it.
We hope Manami’s project inspires you to be more creative with your food, and take the time every day to create something that will be pleasing to look at and a tasty and nutritious treat for your body. Cooking doesn’t have to be stressful, make it into “you time” and treat it as a meditation of sorts that ends with a yummy meal for you. We’re all stuck at home, we might as well use the time to nourish our body and mind.
