FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The expression or saying, “Good enough to eat” can apply in many circumstances. In my experience it is something lovers say to each other when the romantic mood beckons. Also, from an artistic perspective then art can be very tasty and scrumptious and oh so lovely that it feels, “Good enough to Eat”! Feeling fruity and all that. Licking one’s lips and salivating are just terms that for some may have alternative meanings.

It is hard to think that I love glass so much that when I am working on a favourite glass item using a well-tried technique that I know backwards so is relaxing that I feel the urge to eat my glass. In fact, I have never eaten glass so no idea what it would taste like. I can’t imagine it would be very nice and I would probably cut my tongue. I used to make glass sweets. In fact, loads of glassblowers used to make them. Trouble was they looked too realistic, and a few people complained when biting into them they broke their teeth. So, then we glass artists had to use our imagination and make glass sweets so awful looking that they didn’t look like sweets at all and so no one could eat them. It was popular at the time to place glass sweets in a sweet bowl and put them on the mantlepiece. When the sweets fell out and broke, they did take on the appearance of a Foxes glacial mint. I haven’t made glass sweets for many many years now and have no real intention to.

When it comes to fruit then I have made glass apples, oranges, pears, bananas, and grapes. Grapes were the most difficult as a whole bunch is required and to make a lot of indi9vidual grapes then fuse them all together but to make it look like they are separate quite a technical challenge. I cheated and blew a large glass cone and then shaped the edges to make it look like there were lots of grapes in the bunch. Truth was there lots of half grapes as the back of each grape could be seen since it didn’t exist as it was all part of the cone. Cunning, eh?

I was commissioned to make a lot of glass sausages which I enjoyed except that they became weirdly phallic after the first hundred. I think I must have got bored and tried a little deviation. Although simple in shape the problem was that my starting point was always a glass tube which looked like a smooth sausage immediately. I didn’t have to do much except heat stretch and blow. No matter what I did I always ended up with what look like a traffic jam of penises! Can’t complain as the customer was happy.

Similar to sausages in one way is the haggis and I used to make many of these creatures for a local haggis hurling competition. In fact, I was the organiser, and it was not only great fun but raised money for charity. It was a national event and people could win and go on the further rounds in the competition winning trophies and cash. The idea was to stand on a whisky barrel, spin around holding a haggis which was frozen. Competitors were not allowed to hold the string attached to the haggis in case it broke free. This did happen at one competition and the haggis travel over seventy metres at almost the speed of light, landed on a dog who was minding his own business. Two hours later the dog regained consciousness and sued the haggis hurler. I made a few glass haggis but my favourite was my version of come dancing with a haggis. This was two glass haggis holding hands in a romantic pose. I imagine one haggis saying to the other. “Hmmm you look good enough to eat!”

A difficult piece of food to recreate in glass was the humble beefburger. My customer wanted the full works, so I had to make a glass beef burger with cheese and all the relishes. Not only this but as this piece was for a presentation then it had to be mounted on a glass base which I engraved. Mounting a beefburger like a lot of food is difficult because one has to be carful where to fuse the glass tube which connects it too then base. That’s why glass skewers with loads of glass food on are easy because it’s the skewer that connects all the food and one can easily carry on and fix the skewer to a base.
If food is involved, then surely cooking and chefs can’t be too far away. I have made various glass presentation pieces for chefs which have included glass pans, serving utensils and chefs hats. I’ve done glass knives, forks, and spoons. The latter was fun, and I have made full size glass spoons which have been used for real. As I use heat resistant glass then the glass spoons are very happy in boiling coffee or tea. Bending glass spoons is no problem and no magic require as all one needs is a flame that can reach about a thousand degrees centigrade!