"I always did love cooking," Mary explains, so it seemed logical that when she became involved in miniatures, she would want to produce something reflecting that interest.
It is the "look" of her food that sets Mary's work apart from others. "It's mainly the texture that makes it more realistic," she believes. She achieves those textures by using such diverse ingredients as sand and parsley.
Parsley? "Oh yes," Mary says, "I will use parsley on top if it's called for, but I usually don't use regular ingredients." Pea soup, for instance, Mary explains, "has to have a thick texture to it that is done with sand or other fillers. And that's all experimentation," she says, happily. "That's the part I love."
Delving into her collection of some 600 cookbooks, Mary has come up with special dishes for a variety of historical periods, dishes from every region of in the United States, and dishes from many foreign countries. "I love the research of the foods," she says. "Along with the experimentation --- that's what has intrigued me the most. It fascinates me to find out why people in various countries eat what they do and what they put into their foods. Sometimes they eat a certain kind of fish because it happens to be in the river that is flowing through their town."
Mary's foreign dishes, carefully researched, run the gamut from A to Z, from apfelkuchen, which is a German apple and rum custard cake, to zurcher leberspiessle, which is skewered calf's liver and bacon in Switzerland.
Although she relied on pictures of a dish when she first began making miniature food, Mary now finds she can read the and "see the finished dish from the ingredients in it and how they put the ingredients together. A picture, of course, is helpful, but it's not always there."
Page 1 of 2 - APRIL 1986
Mary's
Mouthwatering
Treats
The kitchen, as many realtors quickly tell a prospective buyer, is the heart of the home. This is especially true at the home where Mary Eccher lives and works.
Not only is Mary a good cook in real life, she is in miniature, too. Her accurate examples of miniature foods and beverages can be found in countless collections, and her willingness to share her knowledge has made Mary's articles in NUTSHELL NEWS, as well as her frequent workshops, very popular with miniaturists everywhere.
This gourmet cook's
"pannikins" are a
feast for any
miniaturist's eye
Handcrafted Collectible Dollhouse Scale Miniature Foods, Beverages and Accessories
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NAME ACADEMY of HONOR AWARD MEMBER
Member of CIMTA
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