Have you ever picked up a rock and thought that it looked like a potato or a piece of steak?  How about candy, flowers or vegetable look-alikes?   Well, setting a table with plates of rock "food" is really nothing new, but something that has been done by rockhounds over the last several decades.  I picked up my September issue of "Rock and Gem" magazine last week and discovered an  article on this very subject by Lori Carter.  Featured in this article are  Bill and Lois Patillo who live in Robstown, Texas,  members of the Gulf Coast Gem and Mineral Society in Corpus Christi, Texas.  They have been collecting rocks that look like food for over 25 years.  The pictures that accompany the article are great, and show some things like hot chocolate made of sand and fossils.  That was a new one for me! I have seen rock "food" in my travels to Utah, as well as at the San Diego Fair each year for the last several years.  It seems that lots of lapidary clubs have such a feast for the eyes which they exhibit at shows and club events. 

Some of the rocks are used just as they are, like the "baked potato" or "yam" rock that seems to be common on the beach. Other rocks are cut or shaped to look like food.   Rhyolite when slabbed, really looks like a piece of steak, especially if there is a rind of "fat" showing.  Stalactites make great carrots, and aventurine beads sure do look like green peas.  Any banded agate, or tiger-eye cut into cubes look like petit-fours, just like rhodochrosite pebbles look like yummy candies.   Yellow calcite cut into cubes makes "butter" for that "potato" rock, while  a slice of onion is really a cut geode.  If you use your imagination, you will begin to see your old rocks in a new light.  You might even like to create your own food table for your personal collection--an especially great way to introduce rock collecting to those children in your life.

Most people start out creating gems out of their rocks by tumbling them, which makes rather ordinary rocks look fantastic.  I always love washing off the gray slurry and getting that first look at the beautiful colors of those rock chips I collected in my travels.  Then, slabbing and cabbing the better ones is usually the next step.  However, I have a friend who started out working his rocks into objects of art by turning them into spheres with his newly acquired used equipment, inherited from a great-uncle.  Gene  has only been at it about three months, learning as he goes.  He has access to many different local rocks as he performs his daily job of road grading, and is creating quite a collection of San Diego County local rock spheres.  I have been telling Gene that he will be able to write a book on the subject of making spheres, as he is getting so proficient in making them, even mastering rainbow and mahogany obsidian---traditionally hard to get  that beautiful glassy polish.  As he inherited some rock specimens from his great uncle, he has had a good variety of rocks to practice on, including some not yet identified but really beautiful variegated chunks! 

His next project will be learning how to facet on his old MDR faceting machine, a gift to him from another old timer.  This equipment is at least 50 years old, has been sitting for 35 years, and works just great.  As Gene is quite gifted in making old things work, I am sure the results of his "experimenting" will be just as satisfactory as his wonderful spheres have been.