Playing With Your Food: International Edible Book Festival

April 1^st is not only April Fool’s day, it is also the birthday of French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. In celebration of his life, there is an annual event called the International Edible Book Festival. Participants in an Edible Book Festival create an entry that reflects a book. Entries can reflect a pun on a book title, depict a moment from a well-known book with food, or can simply be something both edible and book-shaped. Books2Eat.com, a site dedicated to promoting this fusion of literary and culinary art, describes it as “a celebration of the ingestion of culture and a way to concretely share a book; it is also a deeper reflexion on our attachment to food and our cultural differences.”

I attended a local celebration of the event at my university’s YMCA. There were a grand of total of twenty-six entries, with nine winners across ten categories. Entries were comprised of a number of foods used for puns: The entry evoking Remembrance of Things Past was made entirely of rotini pasta; Lord of the Rings became a stack of bagels; and Lord of the Flies was reinterpreted with fries. Most of the other entries went with a crowd pleasing baked good, while the entry for The Ugly Duckling went seasonal, with blue raspberry jello and marshmallow peeps. Still others went more literal, with the display for Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit proved that with a beautiful assortment of kiwi and berries, and the display for the 3 Musketeers was composed of three decorated candy bars of the same name.

My favorite award was a called “The One That Made Us Smile” given by the judge, awarded to a group of primary students who submitted a colorful thoroughly frosted confection homage to A Bad Case of Stripes. Other winners included a cute white chocolate book with jagged candy teeth and goldfish crackers garnish for a Jaws entry in the “Best Entry Based on a Book Adapted to Film” category and a stunning entire scene food diorama of Life of Pi that won both “Best Visual Presentation” and “The People’s Choice Award.”

Voting was fun, relaxed and anonymous. Upon entering the building, guests were greeted by volunteers seated at a table. They asked if you wished to vote, and if so, gave you two smiley face stickers which you could then place on two of your favorite entries. The “book” with the most smiley faces at the end of viewing was then declared the winner. Participation does not take long, even if you wanted to be an entrant, entries start arriving at 8 AM and judging is over by 12:30. As a member of the public, viewing began at 11. I recommend, if you go to this Edible Book Festival in particular, you arrive early as lines got long quick.

I highly recommend attending and entering next year to anyone who is even remotely interested. I enjoyed myself thoroughly and I think you will too.

For more information or see all of this year entries as well as winners from years past please visit: http://www.library.illinois.edu/ediblebooks/2013gallery.html

Jessica Armstrong and Ian Sweeney’s entry “After Dune” by Frank Herbert won Best Collaborative Creation