When was the last time you devoured a good book? For participants in the International Edible Books Festival, it has been nearly a year. Luckily, their opportunity arose once again on Friday, April 1, when Collins Memorial Library celebrated the annual event for the fifth consecutive year.
Around the world, artists, chefs and bookworms celebrate by entering their edible book-shaped or book-inspired works in local competitions. Puget Sound received 31 submissions this year, which were on display from 11 a.m.—4 p.m. in the link.
A celebrity panel of food and book experts selected the winners, which included Julie Coykendall, Director of Dining and Conference Services, William Jolly, culinary arts instructor at Clover Park Technical College and veteran judge Barbara Racine, manager of the Puget Sound bookstore.
This year, 21 Puget Sound staff members, three students and nine community members brought in their literary creations. Although numbers were down from 2010, festival coordinators were impressed with the quality.
“This year’s entries were seriously creative,” Library Director and festival coordinator Jane Carlin said. “The effort we saw was remarkable, and it’s clear that participants put in a lot of thought.”
Librarian Patt Leonard agreed. “The 2011 pieces were exceptionally witty, which is always fun,” she said.
The festival pays homage to French connoisseur and food writer Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755–1826), in honor of his birthday. Brillat-Savarin is famous for his witty book Physiologie du gout (The Physiology of Taste).
Participants competed for awards in ten categories, including Best Student Entry, Most Beautiful, Most Creative and Most Humorous, among others. Categories vary by festival venue, but other popular ideas include Punniest, Best Depiction of a Classic, Most Appetizing and Least Appetizing.
Contest entrants didn’t have all the fun. Visitors from on- and off-campus were asked to vote for the People’s Choice Award, which was given to senior Rose Thompson for her trilogy of cupcakes entitled “Eat, Pray and Love,” based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love.
Thompson says her creation was inspired by her experience interning with Cake Central magazine.
“Once I came up with the cupcake idea, I looked at a couple books and websites for design inspiration and got some tips from the Cake Central crew,” she said. “Eat, Pray, Love is such an incredible story, I tried to do it justice with colorful and creative cupcakes.”
Library staff members took home most of the awards, including Cassandra Palmore for her piece “Satanic Nurses,” based on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses.
Carmel Thompson, librarian and festival coordinator, was awarded Most Delicious for her “Literary Libations.” The three-part work displayed three mixed drinks called Tequila Mockingbird, A Sidecar Named Desire and The Turn of the Screwdriver, inspired by Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Tennesse Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire and Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw.
Community member Tyler Briggs took home Most Humorous for Frank in Stein, a hotdog set inside a beer stein, inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
After creating the first edible book with her book artist friends at a 1999 Thanksgiving celebration, librarian Judith A. Hoffberg was inspired to spread the word about her yummy idea. In 2000, she teamed up with artist Beatrice Coron, who launched www.books2eat.com and catapulted the project into the international consciousness.
Since then, communities around the world have been coming together annually to enjoy this unique marriage of culinary and literary arts. According to the website, the event’s only criteria for entry is that each celebration be held on April 1, that submissions illustrate literary inspiration and that participants register on the website, so as to ensure events are immortalized.
Coron continues to coordinate and facilitate international festivals by keeping the website updated with pictures of contest winners from around the world. According to the website, the festival is meant to be a “celebration of the ingestion of culture and a way to concretely share a book.”
The festival has become a tradition at Collins Memorial Library ever since staff members Sue Boggs and Leonard brought it to campus in 2007. It has been gaining popularity, boasting a record fifty entries in 2010. In fact, The Chronicle of Higher Education recognized the University’s participation in a recent article.
For more tasty tidbits on this year’s festivities, check out http://chronicle.com to read the Chronicle article, or http://blog.thenewstribune.com/arts/2010 for The Tacoma News Tribune blog coverage.
[PHOTO COURTESY / JEANNE YOUNG]