Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece has been caricatured, cannibalized, morphed, manipulated, multiplied, and reproduced in every conceivable medium -- from jewels to spools to bricks to buttons. Makers of "edible art" haven't been able to resist the urge to translate Mona Lisa into a culinary creation.
Recently Siberian chefs, using only domestic ingredients, adorned their Mona Lisa (above) with hair of black rice and a shawl of spaghetti. No Western meats, vegetables, or dairy products, all banned in retaliation for sanctions imposed on the country over its role in the Ukraine crisis, were used in the oversized portrait.
An art student inspired by the work of Guiseppe Arcimboldo, who painted portraits of people made out of fruits, vegetables, and other foods, devised an app in which he simply entered "Mona Lisa" and "food" to generate the image above.
Here are some other tasty treatments of the ever-tantalizing Mona Lisa:
"Java" Mona in coffee beans
In tofu and sausage
Veggie-loving Mona
Banana with Mona "appeal"
Mona in toast
Pasta Mona
If Leonardo's lady were to indulge in all the ingredients used in these caricatures, she might well end up looking like this:
Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered, now in paperback, and LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.
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