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Just looking at Mary Eccher's foods can destroy a diet!
TOP:  MARY AND HER SON David built this first Thanksgiving scene one rainy day.  Foods that are historically and regionally authentic are Mary's specialty.
LEFT:  ALL THE FOODS for her Thanksgiving were carefully researched.  This is just a portion of the feast.
  When Mary did her first show some 25 years ago, "I didn't have many fruits and vegetables at all; I had landscaping because I had a herb garden.  Gardening is my second love, and I had planted 109 herbs when David was born."  David the youngest of Mary's three children, graduated from college several years ago.  "I dried the herbs in my basement," Mary goes on, "and that is what I went into business with, mostly, along with  few cakes and fruits and vegetables.
    At the first few miniature shows Mary attended, she noticed that many collectors  were passing her by, food was not considered a collectible item in those days.  Possibly because of instability , or short life span, of bread dough as a medium, collectors were building miniature settings that would logically include food, such as Sturbridge kitchen, but not putting it in.  With the advent of more stable compounds, which are virtually indestructible, all that has changed.
    Since she already loved to cook, Mary began researching foods, adding to her growing collection of cookbooks, and creating the foods that are considered authentic to a wide variety of settings and time periods. 
    "Research is probably one of the best parts of this for me," she says.  "I can get caught up in a cookbook the same way some people get caught up in a novel because I love to learn why people eat what they eat".  She would make each dish in real size with real ingredients, just to see how it was put together and what it looked like when completed.  "25 years ago," she says,
"there weren't many cookbooks with wonderful color photos."
    Now, however, Mary doesn't have to actually make the dish, she says.  "all I have to do is read the ingredients and I can actually see the recipe in my mind.  When I first started," she goes on, "I decided I was going to go into regional dishes, period dishes, things that would add to someone's setting because I wanted food to be part of those settings.  That is why I had to cook them first because that type of cookbook didn't have pictures."
October 1996
Handcrafted Collectible Dollhouse Scale Miniature Foods, Beverages and Accessories
IGMA ARTISAN
NAME ACADEMY of  HONOR AWARD MEMBER
Member of CIMTA
I will celebrate your life for the rest of mine....