CENTREPIECE: Butter sculpting has caught the imagination of many an artist and has now become the highlight of many culinary events and competitions.
Butter sculptors have created elaborate displays of varying themes
— from scenic wonders to more poignant subjects — all intricately
carved and exquisitely detailed. By Aney Mathew
The hand moves with expertise as deft brush strokes define the eye; a small barbecue stick is then used to scoop out any excess. Hold your horses! Before you imagine a gory scene of someone gouging portions of an eye, rest assured that our topic today is amiable and as smooth as butter.
Pradeep Chaturanga is not gashing anybody’s face; rather with flair and patience he is giving the finishing touches to his work of art. Lightly and delicately he details the fine features, working expertly on the head of a horse, that’s sculpted in butter. Oops no! It’s margarine.
So is it butter or margarine? Traditionally and even today, butter carving is just that – sculpting figures using real butter. Have no doubt, butter is better!
The idea of using butter as a real art material is said to have originated in the cold mountains of Tibet hundreds of years ago. The availability of yak butter, its elastic qualities and the cold Himalayan climate lent themselves to carvings of large, intricate sculptures inspired by religious texts. Buddhist monks created brightly coloured sculptures called ‘Tormas’, using this interesting medium — as an offering. The tradition has passed down generations and even today dozens of monks work for months together on a single, giant sculpture that is then displayed at the Tibetan New Year; sculptures ranging from a few centimetres to several stories high, attract scores of tourists from around the world.
Butter carvings were also popular as centrepiece displays at elaborate banquets of the wealthy, way back – dating to the Renaissance and Baroque period in Europe. Butter sculpting has caught the imagination of many an artist and the art of sculpting with butter rapidly whisked its way across the oceans and has now become the highlight of many culinary events and competitions.
Butter sculptors have created elaborate displays of varying themes — from scenic wonders to more poignant subjects — all intricately carved and exquisitely detailed. Famous sculptures from a rendition of the Last Supper to a dancing Elvis Presley have popularised the art!
The craft’s profile has been elevated in Qatar by the Annual Qafco Competitions, where astounding ‘butter’ displays are showcased. It’s a spread of brilliance! However, this art has generally been associated with professionals and kitchen artists.
Community decided to get some facts on butter carving clarified and to find out how a masterpiece is churned out. So this reporter stopped at the Mercure Grand Doha Hotel which has established itself as a successful contender in the field of culinary crafts. In response to our queries, we were offered a demonstration of how to go about creating a simple ‘butter’ sculpture.
Make no mistake; modelling with butter is not for butter fingers. Watching Darshana Pradeep Chaturanga – the hotel’s Kitchen Artist, as he works his way patiently, shaping and moulding the features of a horse – detailing every aspect of its visage, you realise the patience, skill and the steady hands that the craft demands. It’s almost like, ‘if you breathe, your hands will move’.
As we observe Pradeep working in deep concentration, we receive a chilly insight — the temperature of the room where the buttery horse is taking shape, is cold. This is another requirement for the craft. Working with real butter requires lots of ice water and your hands have to be kept really cold or practically numb to prevent a meltdown.
To this day, it is said that Tibetan monks working with real yak butter, create their works of art in rooms kept at 32 deg F/ 0 deg C! Brr! Now if that isn’t cold! As a matter of fact, almost everywhere butter sculptors normally work in refrigerated studios — it’s worse than taking an Ice Bucket Challenge!
Thankfully, although our room is cold, we don’t have to experience near Arctic weather conditions for our demo. We are in a room cooled by a/c and not in a refrigerator! That’s because as mentioned earlier, the ‘creamy goodness seen on ‘butter’ sculptures in Qatar is often pastry margarine — a piece of information that might come as a surprise to many. Margarine is preferred as the medium for sculpting in this region, simply because it is less vulnerable to temperature and doesn’t melt so easily. The prevailing harsh weather conditions warrant no further explanation.
Watching the ‘butter’ sculpting demo is a myth buster of sorts: having learnt the medium in use in this part of the world is actually margarine, another surprise awaits us. Most of us might assume that the large butter sculptures we gaze at in wonder, are solid figures, made entirely of layers and layers of butter, piled on top of the other, despite the practical and logistic difficulties that would involve. Well, the craft does call for a more practical concept.
Even as several questions are being churned out in the head, Pradeep begins by applying margarine carefully on a horse-shaped Styrofoam, that’s used as a base. Now before you say, ‘Aha! That’s very easy,’ keep in mind, that after picking a theme, this artist first drew out his subject on a piece of paper and then converted his 2D image into a 3 dimensional rendition by personally carving out the figure in rigid foam; there’s art right there!
The idea behind using a base is simply because some kind of a frame work is required to hold the ‘butter’ in place; similar to clay modelling. Traditionally bamboo sticks were said to have been fashioned into the framework; but today, wood and/or metal mesh and Styrofoam are popular bases; in the case of huge, gigantic pieces, wood is generally used.
Make no mistake — modelling with butter is not about slapping some fat onto a given framework. After applying the butter onto the base and getting a kind of foundation ready, Pradeep begins to shape the subject with his hands, smoothing and carefully contouring the figure, giving the finishing touches. The craft demands intricate work and the level of detail and accuracy required is fairly challenging.
Now you could be wondering about the complicated tools that are required for the delicate, detailed work. While high-end sculpting tools are available and often used, Pradeep’s tool kit is quite simple. Interestingly it comprises a few barbeque sticks, a carving knife and some brushes — reminding you that the greatest tools of a skilled craftsman are his imagination and his fingers.
The artist works on his piece with intense concentration; he seems rather quiet and it appears he’d rather work on his masterpiece than have to answer a barrage of questions from a curious journalist. Thankfully Janaka McDonald, the Asst. Manger – Front Office, comes to our rescue.
“During competitions, judges are not necessarily impressed with the size of your entry. What matters is the precision, accuracy and how true-to-life the statuette is. If for instance you try to model a hand, your work is assessed on how realistic and proportional the various muscles are,” explains Janaka as he translates and explains for our benefit.
As with most crafts, butter sculptures require an ample amount of time and a generous dose of patience. Even this small horse’s head measuring just about a foot in height, takes more than a couple of hours to complete. The gourmet sculptor keeps working on the sculpture, working on all the details. So when does he decide ‘enough is enough’? “You keep fashioning and moulding until the figure looks like the image you pictured originally in your mind,” answers Janaka in response to the question.
“He is an excellent artist, he can sketch portraits of people to their true likeness,” pipes in Lahcen Bimadarne the Asst Chef who is all praises for his kitchen artist. Pradeep has had no formal art training and is basically self-taught. He has successfully acquired the knowledge and skill of various gourmet arts including fruit and vegetable carving, ice carving and Styrofoam carving to name a few.
Butter sculpting has a few additional challenges unique to the medium, when compared to other crafts; you cannot hold on to your subject too tightly while ‘buttering’ it, for fear of leaving telltale signs of finger prints on the figure. So when working with butter or margarine, the artist starts from the top and works his way to the bottom, holding on to the piece with the lightest touch.
Once completed, the sculpture is buffed with the hand; the heat from the hands gives the piece its sheen. Kept in a cold room and away from dust, the final masterpiece can be put up on display for at least a year – a much longer shelf life compared to the durability of most works of art, fashioned in the kitchen.
As Pradeep completes his project and we admire the intricacy of the work involved, one thing seems obvious: regardless of its demands on the sculptor and its vulnerability to heat and dust, ‘butter’ sculptures continue to assert their place as a fascinating craft - both among artists and spectators.
With the considerable appeal factor they are churning out, their reputation as crowd pullers is not likely to melt very easily. You can more than just butter your toast. It’s better days for butter!
