Taiwanese collector serves up rock hard banquet by Rachel Lim You may fancy a sumptuous banquet of such delicacies as shark's fin soup, foie gras or Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. But try biting into these delectable platters prepared by Taiwan's Hsu Chun-I and you could chip a tooth, as they are made of cold, hard stones. "A Banquet In Stone," Hsu's visual feast of 52 rare and expensive dishes assembled from stones and minerals, is on show at the National Museum of Singapore until August 12. It is the collection's first showing outside Taiwan. On the menu, valued at more than 650,000 US dollars (475,000 euros), are stone exhibits that bear an uncanny resemblance to a mixture of Eastern and Western dishes, from Yangzhou fried rice and a variety of dim sum to caviar. The stones used to create the banquet are neither cut, tampered with nor dyed, said 60-year-old Hsu, a retired engineer. He only selects stones that bear an extremely close resemblance to the dishes. "When you carve or dye the stones, you can always create a replica of the dish. But when you use rare stones, they are one-of-a-kind. The immense value of the stones comes from this," Hsu told AFP. Stone collecting is an age-old Chinese hobby and appreciation of stones can be found in Chinese literature over the centuries. Hsu began collecting 21 years ago. About a decade later, he started to concentrate on stones that resemble food after he saw how two exhibits captivated visitors at The National Palace Museum in Taipei. One was shaped like a baby Chinese cabbage. The other resembled a piece of meat. "I realised I could put stones together to resemble something like food that is very close to people's lives. That is my goal," said Hsu, who has amassed a collection of 276 dishes made from rare stones and valued at more than 1.31 million US dollars. He said he does not accept exhibition fees and relies on his retirement pension and other savings for income. "The reason why I am exhibiting my collection is to share my creations with the whole world and for everyone to have a great visual feast. That's my biggest hope," Hsu said. His most expensive exhibit is "Pig's Trotters and Eggs Stewed in Dark Soya Sauce," worth almost 85,000 US dollars. Stones from China, including the Gobi Desert and Inner Mongolia, make up 70 percent of his collection. The rest come from elsewhere in Asia and other parts of the world. Each laborious creation is based on press clippings and photographs, Hsu said. A plate of shimuyu fish, made of five separate agate stones from the Gobi Desert, took him three years to assemble. Hsu painstakingly searched for five stones which shared the same texture and proportion, and which resembled five cut pieces of fish, from head to tail. He also pays attention to the presentation of each dish, using minute translucent crystals to form the "soup base," and garnishing dishes with plastic replicas of vegetables. "I use my imagination to come up with an idea, then I'll go to a few stone merchants to look for the stone that I need. But to get the stones that I want really quickly, I have to grow a friendship and rapport with them," said Hsu. The piece that has amazed many visitors is a slab of Jinxiang stone, from Yunnan in southwestern China, measuring 4.5 by 11 centimetres (1.8 by 4.4 inches). It resembles a large block of chocolate and even gives off a milky chocolate scent. "Since it was exhibited more than a year ago, the scent still remains and never evaporates, unlike fakes that are soaked in chocolate essence and the smell wears off over time," said Hsu, who found the stone "by chance" and says its authenticity has been verified. To cater his "banquet" to the Singaporean palate, Hsu took six months to make a new menu offering Bak Kut Teh, a local favourite of pork ribs cooked in a broth of herbs and spices. He plans to add more Western dishes to the collection and bring his "banquet in stone" to Europe and the United States. Ironically, Hsu said he is no food lover, though he said he has probably tasted 99 percent of the dishes in his collection. The centrepiece of his exhibition is a table full of exquisite and rare dishes including "Bear's Paw" and "Dragon and Phoenix Steamboat" from an imperial banquet served during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). "I have tried most of the dishes in my collection, except for the bear's paw because bear is an endangered animal now," said the cheerful Hsu, laughing. "I made the dish relying on my imagination." (Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. )