Find inspiration to play with your food from this designer’s collection.

Art is in the eye of the beholder and can be created from a wide variety of mediums. While we’ve seen gorgeous flower gardens embedded in fruit sandwiches and sculptors carve traditional Japanese woodwork designs into apples, one designer decided to push their creative limits by painstakingly decorating their morning toast.

Manami Sasaki, going by the Insta-handle @sasamana1204, is a Tokyo-based live painter. However, with the wake of COVID-19’s spread in Japan, and following stay-in-shelter orders, they’ve briefly switched from painting to elaborate toast art.

From making mini zen gardens to re-creating modernist art, the artist’s social media feeds are filled with breathtaking renditions of your plain ol’ morning toast.

▼ Manami used sour cream, nuts and matcha powder to represent the sand and rocks of a tranquil zen garden. The lines were carefully raked into the sour cream with a fork.

▼ The recreated zen garden is reminiscent of Ryoanji, which is considered one of Japan’s most abstract gardens.

Other parts of traditional Japanese culture such as kintsugi and hanafuda are also reflected in Manami’s toast art.

▼ Kintsugi, translating to “gold joinery,” is the art of repairing broken dishes with gold. Manami used ketchup and edible gold leaf to hold their toast together.

▼ Hanafuda are traditional Japanese playing cards. Shaved seaweed, nuts, tomato, mentaiko, and shirasu (baby sardines) depict the crane card of the pine suite.

Traditional motifs in Japanese art such as camellia flowers and sakura received a spotlight as well in Manami’s growing collection.

▼ Manami used tomato sauce, mint leaves, mustard sauce, and margarine to create this eye-catching camellia pattern.

▼ Inspired by sakura blooms while taking a walk near a river, Manami mixed blueberry jam and chocolate for this springtime display.

The artist also gave a callback to famous anime series, such as this brow-raising scene from GeGeGe no Kitarou.

▼ Left speech bubble: “Let us go pray!”
Right speech bubble: “I’m an atheist so I’d rather piss than pray!”

For some mornings, Manami leaned more towards her design roots, choosing modernist works and bringing them to life on bread through a colorful array of red cabbage, baby tomatoes, and bell peppers.

▼ Manami paid homage to Paul Rand, who was considered a modernist master in many design circles and created IBM’s famous iconographic poster.

▼ Italian artist Bruno Munari, famous for his futuristic work, was also given tribute with a reference to his piece Tuttoquadro.

Naturally, a few curious netizens wondered how Manami managed to curate such exquisite toast art. To satisfy their curiosity, Manami posted a photo of their process for their Bruno Munari tribute on Twitter.

▼ “I’ve received questions about the tools I use. For this piece, I used a needle to create the shape from the seaweed, then a pair of tweezers to set everything.”

For those who want to follow Manami’s toast art adventures, or to see their paintings, you can access their Instagram here.

And if you’re craving for more food art to stave off the gloom of doom-scrolling a social media feed full of COVID-19 news, check out our other food art-centered articles such as these ‘eggstraordinary’ creations and cookies which look like meals!

Source: Instagram/sasamana1204
Insert image: Wikipedia/Stephane D’Alu
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