Vegetable Carving Initiation
The most popular theory of the history of vegetable carving is that it originates in Thailand. It started during the Loi Kratong festival in the 14th century. During Loi Kratong, rafts are individually decorated using many objects, including banana leaves and flowers.
In the year 1364, one of King Phra Ruang’s servants, Nang Noppamart, had the desire to create a unique decoration for her raft. Nang carved a flower from a vegetable using a real flower as a pattern. She carved a bird as well and set it beside the flower. Using these carvings, she created a raft that stood out above the rest. King Phra Ruang was impressed by the grace and beauty of the carving and decreed that every woman should learn this new art.
As the centuries passed, enthusiasm for this art waxed and waned. In 1808, King Rama II loved vegetable carving so much so that he wrote poetry about it. However, during the 1932 revolution in Thailand, appreciation for vegetable carving died down. In order to revive interest, it is taught from the age of 11 in primary schools through secondary school in Thailand. Optional courses are also offered in universities throughout Thailand.
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Famous quotes containing the words vegetable and/or initiation:
“The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit,—not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic.”
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