Good Enough to Eat

Hungry? How about a steak dinner with all the trimmings, followed by a strawberry sundae piled high with whipped cream? If vinyls, polyurethanes and resins are to your taste, this is the place for you. Iwasaki Images of America is a practitioner of the arcane art of food replication: making lifelike foodstuffs from synthetic materials. Long used in Japan, fake food is increasingly used in the United States for restaurant displays, film props and even as novelty gifts. When durability is required, a complete salad bar--fake right down to the crushed ice--will look fresh and green into the next century. The company can create an attractive “menu” from its catalogue of ready-made items, or it will bake, drill, paint and glue a customized item on request. Founded 15 years ago in Harry Fujita’s garage, Torrance-based Iwasaki Images counts among its customers Disneyland, Anheuser-Busch, Hickory Farms and Burger King.