Golden City Eight-Treasure Melon Carving

Golden City Eight-Treasure Melon Carving

　　The Golden City Eight-Treasure Melon Carving is a traditional food carving art of the people in Lanzhou. It involves carving patterns on the melon rind using interlocking knife techniques, scooping out the flesh, and using the hollowed-out melon as a serving vessel filled with ingredients such as white fungus, rock sugar, white sugar, osmanthus, as well as canned fruits like pineapple, oranges, red cherries, lychees, and waxberries. The carved melon designs are exquisitely delicate and translucent, while the fillings are cool, sweet, and refreshing. Lanzhou is renowned as a city of fruits and melons, famous for its large-sized watermelons and diverse varieties. Skilled melon carvers in Lanzhou, based on the size and shape of the melons, ingeniously apply a variety of refined techniques such as cutting, lifting, pulling, pushing, carving, and hollowing out to create numerous patterns including five-pointed stars, triangles, square rings, eight sections, swords, interlocks, swaps, lotus flowers, plum blossoms, goldfish, ingots, flower baskets, and fish baskets. They are acclaimed both domestically and internationally for their clear patterns and even lines. (Lanzhou)