One recent Thursday evening, Jim Victor, the food artist, drove from his home town of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania to Manhattan. In the back of his jeep, wrapped in thick black plastic, was his latest artwork, a life-sized bust of Christopher Columbus, done entirely in Parmesan cheese, that had been commissioned for the Little Italy parade on Saturday afternoon. Victor was scheduled to make three other public appearances: two television interviews on Friday morning, and a sidewalk show that same afternoon, where passers-by would have an opportunity to see him work.
Victor, who is fifty-five, has been sculpting from chocolate, butter and cheese for over fifteen years and now considers himself exclusively a food "Constructivist." He uses "Constructivist" to recall the avant-garde Russian artists working in the early twentieth century, and is disgruntled by the fact that general opinion belittles food art. "The funny thing is that people think, oh, it's a cheese sculpture, it should be easy, but in fact it is harder because you are working in a medium that is not meant to be worked on." Originally a sculptor of political busts, his transition to perishables came in the late eighties when he responded to an American Dairy Association advertisement searching for a butter sculptor. ("It wasn't till I got into butter that my attitude changed.") Aside from the technical difficulties of working with food, Victor's greatest difficulty is the line of people waiting to be fed at his exhibitions. "You have to push them away," he explains. "It's embarrassing."
Victor sees no reason why his latest piece should suggest comedy. "He's an Italian, and this is cheese. They go together perfectly," he said dryly. The wheels of parmesan, each measuring twelve inches in diameter, were sliced and then mounted on a wooden armature by means of twenty screws, one in the forehead, one in the bridge of the nose, two in the cheeks, one in the forehead, and the rest along the hat and neck. The finer details were done with a specialised wood-carving tool, and the skin was coated in confectionery lacquer, to prevent cracking. "I would work with all kinds of cheeses, but some cheeses would be better than others," Victor said. "Parmesan, for example, carves beautifully. It really carves nice. But it doesn't repair too well because it is so dry. So I mix butter with the parmesan to fill the holes."

At the first of Friday's television appearances, Victor's welcome was warm, if confused. "That cheese does smell interesting," Juliette Huddy of Fox and Friends said. Sujata Sinha at WB11 felt the same. "Whew! What kind of cheese is this?" At 7:48 am, Columbus was wheeled onto the stage, where news-presenters had an opportunity to grate his neck, with Victor keeping a close eye on proceedings. By 8 o'clock Columbus was again safe in the jeep, cooling off before his three o'clock public appearance outside the Precious Blood Church on Mulberry Street.
Victor admits to trepidation before the parade."I just hope they don't throw tomatoes," he laughed nervously. "That could go with the cheese."
By one thirty a large crowd had gathered on Mulberry Street. Victor, standing proudly beside Columbus, waved enthusiastically from his float. "Yes, it's cheese!" he shouted. Restauranteurs and shoppers paused to laugh and point. "You're making me hungry," one man screamed. "Say cheese," another yelled as she took his photograph. The parade proceeded from Canal to Broome Street, where both artist and work were helped from the float. As the crowd dispersed, Victor said he was pleased with the show, his only regret being he hadn't brought his camera. It remained only to find a home for Columbus. Earlier a show had called and expressed interest in buying the sculpture, but Victor couldn't recall the name. "It's Brini Maxwell?" he suggested. "It's a woman, that's a man. It's like a style show."
In the end, however, Columbus was donated to the Precious Blood Church, to be raffled off (and presumably, eaten.) Did the thought of his art being consumed disturb Victor?
"Sculptors, particularly older sculptors like myself, who have done a lot of work over the years, know you can't save everything,' he said philosophically. "That's why the Buddhists made butter sculptures. It's about the temporary quality of life. Things are here, then they're gone."