Taste: Eat This Now: The Surreal Meal at the Fountain

Food was an inspiration for surrealist Salvador Dalí. See, for instance, his Lobster Telephone, in which the boiled crustacean, ready to be cracked and dipped in butter, sits atop a rotary phone, or his signature melting clocks, said to have been inspired by Camembert cheese. Dalí even wrote a cookbook, Les Diners de Gala, though today the out-of-print tome is more coveted for its 12 food-inspired lithographs than its maddeningly complex French recipes.

Now, Dalí is an inspiration for food, from Fountain chef Martin Hamann. To coincide with the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Dalí exhibition this month, Hamann has created the Surreal Meal, an à la carte menu influenced by the artist’s attitudes toward eating — whole fish and fowl were Dalí favorites — and his unusual aesthetics. Among Hamann’s works of art: sautéed prawn with snow pea crepes and spiced carrot vinaigrette, and squab with Swiss chard leaves and foie gras.