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Fruit & Vegetable Carving for the Autumn Season

Find inspiration for your Halloween Pumpkin Carving Party with these new Pumpkin Carving ideas, designs, and patterns with an Asian twist. Fruits and vegetables go under the knife to be transformed into star and flower-shaped lanterns, yellow roses and zinnias.

If you are planning a Autumn-themed party consider decorating your tables with these Asian-inspired pumpkin carvings. Pumpkins, gourds and watermelons have become the medium of professional carving artists who have turned these earthy vegetables and fruits into perishable works of art.

Take inspiration from professional carvers, like Chef Ray Duey, to take your pumpkin carving to a new level this year.

Jack-o-Laterns

Eight-pointed Star Pumpkin Lantern	Three-tiered Pumpkin Flower Lantern	Thai-inspired Pumpkin Carving

Fu it carving was originally a very time consuming intricate art, requiring years of practice under the guidance of a master carver. Fortunately for modern times, professional chefs like Ray Duey have refined fruit and vegetable carving techniques to make it practical for Western kitchens to add fruit carving to their repertoire. Using tools like U and V cutters and other specially designed knives for carving, Chef Duey can turn out plate garnishes in minutes that look intricate and mysterious to the beholder.

A turnip turns into a flower, an eggplant into a leaf and an pumpkin into a turkey in the hands of the Chef Duey. The three pumpkin lanterns pictured above were carved by Chef Ray Duey for the Halloween season.

Fruit and vegetable carving techniques differ from chopping, mincing and dicing. Instead, carving requires making curved cuts with small, sharp tools like u-and-v cutters (that make u-and-v shapes) and Thai flexible lacquer style knives. Both help save the wrists from fatigue, Chef Duey says. The Thai flexible lacquer-style knife was used to make the pumpkin carvings shown above.

Many fruit and vegetable carvings including the turnip flower and eggplant leaves, are easy enough for anyone to try, including the home cook, according to Chef Ray.

Search on the internet for the phrase 'pumpkin carving' and you will find dozens of people laying claim to the title of professional pumpkin carver. If you have been wondering what color your parachute is, perhaps this is a career to consider! If you would like to learn how easy it can be to carve these beautiful carvings, Chef Duey teaches classes in fruit and vegetable carving throughout the US for culinary professionals and avid amateurs (see his web site for schedules).

Check out Chef Ray Duey's Fruit and Vegetable Carving DVD to get started carving now. Chef Duey is a Certified Executive Chef through the American Culinary Federation who has been teaching the culinary arts for over 20 years to professionals chefs, caterers, and individuals.

More Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkin Carving Rose	Yellow Zinnia Flower	Pumpkin Carving Idea

Yellow Zinnia Flower Pumpkin Carving - Download Adobe PDF carving instructions by following the link

Pumpkin Carving from The Ancient Thai Art of Vegetable Carving Book

Step by Step Carving

Step By Step Pumpkin Carving:

1. Sketch a design on tracing paper - think of it as a stencil so that all elements of the design are connected with no free standing shapes. Ideas for designs can include scenes, designs, words, flowers, suns, stars, insects, animals. Consider having designs that wrap all the way around the pumpkin.
2. Cut a lid, making sure it is large enough for your hand to fit comfortably inside the pumpkin to clean it out. A notch cut into the lid will make it easier to find the correct way to replace it.
3. Clean out the inside using a special pumpkin scoop with a flattened end or a kitchen spoon. Scrape the sides of the pumpkin flesh inside until the area that will be carved is reduced to about an inch think.
4. Next transfer your design to the pumpkin by taping it to the outside and then use a pin to prick all along the lines of the pattern. Remove the paper pattern. The pin pricks become the guide for the carving.
5. Using a tiny carving blade, connect the pin pricks, like connecting a dot-to-dot puzzle. It's important to keep the blade perpendicular to the pumpkin and saw up and down. Don't put your hand inside the pumpkin while you're sawing! Carve the smaller, more intricate areas of the design first, leaving the larger areas until last.
6. To retain the carving as long as possible be sure to use firm produce which is not really ripe; spray it with original PAM cooking spray when the carving is complete. PAM will prevent carvings from drying out or turning cloudy when refrigerated. Cover with a wet paper towel and plastic wrap, a melon carving sprayed with PAM can be kept in the refrigerator about a week.
7. To light the pumpkin, use up to 5 or 6 tea lights per pumpkin to really make it glow. Christmas bulbs can also be used to light a pumpkin - the blinking bulbs make the pumpkin seem alive!

Pumpkin carving Instructions inspired by David Rochelle, professional pumpkin carver, illustrator, and book author.

Also see these excellent websites for more Pumpkin Carving (external links):

• Steve's Pumpkin Art
• Pumpkin Gutter

Welcome to the Temple of Thai fruit carving!

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