Ice carving is one fascinating skill that few chefs learn and even fewer excel in. The art was notably incorporated in fine dining when the famous French Chef Auguste Escoffier used an ice swan to present a Peach Melba around 1892. But ice carvings have been created for centuries with some of the earliest known ice sculptures serving as shelter for people seeking protection from harsh weather conditions. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, evidence is hard to find for ancient ice sculptures.
Today’s chefs use ice sculptures in a variety of settings — holiday buffets, Sunday brunches, hotels, cruise ships, weddings — these centerpieces are always big attention grabbers.
The over 40 year strong weekend-long Plymouth Ice Festival, has a long-standing ice carving tradition that brings the community together and even people from out of town to witness hundreds of beautiful ice sculptures. Carvings are done by individual artists, students, and ice sculpting companies. Though ice carving experts are few and far between, the bystanders are mesmerized by the skill and precision of these talented artists.
Event organizer, James Gietzen, tells us they receive over 300 blocks of ice to the area that turn into 200 - 250 carvings by the time the festival is over, each ice block weighing about 350 lbs. Gietzen explains this festival gives culinary students the chance to show off their talents and demonstrates how this unique skill sets them apart.
Oakland Community College and Schoolcraft College had stations for students and instructors to carve their pieces. Expert ice sculptor Chef Ted Wakar was paired up with two Schoolcraft College students, Hyiam Sitto and Jorge Aguilar, to sculpt a mermaid sitting on a clamshell. Ted Wakar has been coming to the Plymouth Ice Festival since it began and is a humble legend among the ice sculpting community. Wakar has been a professional carver for the past 40 years in Metro Detroit and participates in many ice carving events around the world. Most notably, he was on the first non-Japanese team to place first in the 37th Annual World Ice Sculptors Competition in Japan, which has been the only non-Japanese team to do so. Wakar has also traveled to carve ice sculptures for two winter Olympic games. Currently, he is working as an executive chef at the Ford Motor Company, and teaching ice sculpting at Schoolcraft College.
With OCC was Instructor and Certified Executive Chef Tyler Coleman, who has been coming to this festival for several years now recalls admiring Ted Wakar’s work during his years learning in college. Coleman mentions how the ice carving community is smaller today than it once was making it all that more enjoyable to witness. OCC featured Chef Tyler Coleman’s abstract centerpiece, as well as a fun dinosaur piece done by Ben Goebel and his team. Goebel is an OCC ice carving alumni and national collegiate championship winner and the owner of Top Shelf Ice located in Plymouth.
This unique skill will make for an exciting segment in our film featuring these talented artists. Thank you to the professional ice carvers and Plymouth Ice Festival for some fun days of filming.