Of all traditional Japanese dishes, sushi is often thought of as being the country's most emblematic cuisine. Aside from being perhaps Japan's most popular foodie export to the world, the training, preparation, plating, and attention to aesthetic is something rooted in a lot of Japanese culinary tradition.

So for something with such a delicate image, you might imagine the idea of beautifully crafted and mouthwatering sushi crafted from stone to be a challenging endeavor, but that's just what university student Hama (@ha_ma_73) did with their art university thesis project: a gorgeous platter of sushi made entirely of natural stone using no coloring that looks just as good as the real thing!

Currently on display (until the 27th) of the "Joint Graduation Exhibition of 5 Art Universities in Tokyo" at the National Art Center, you can see that Hama put an incredible amount and work and detail into expertly crafting the stone sushi.

Hama explains that the theme of the project ties the waste and loss of food, as well as life together, citing their part time work at restaurant where fresh fish is served and they can see the process of waste and life up close as inspiration.

Hama shared pictures of the creation process, showing how they used naturally colored stones and fined them to replicate every detail of various types of sushi such as tuna, shrimp, negitoro, and even uni.

Even the soy sauce dish and chopstick rest is made from stone!

Hama also used sushi they made and sashimi they bought as a basis, first illustrating them before recreating them in stone form.

Stone sushi that looks good enough to eat--a truly great accomplishment!

You can follow Hama on Twitter and pixiv to follow their art work.