Spotlight: Read It and Eat

Legible edibles at Seattle’s fourth Edible Book Festival

Attendees at “Cook the Books!” Seattle’s Edible Book Festival would do well to bring a hearty appetite…and a strong stomach for puns. Past entries in this event—which unites word nerds and foodies in a challenge to concoct a book-themed food—have sported such delectably silly titles as “The Milagro Bean Dip War,” “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Bread,” “Remembrance of Things Pasta” and, of course, “Banana Karenina.” Jill Lightner, editor of Edible Seattle magazine and co-organizer of the first three edible book fests, explains, “The foodies go with a food-related book, and the book nerds come up with terrible puns.” 

The gleefully goofy festival—part of the International Edible Book Festival that takes place on or near April 1 all over the world—started small at the (very last) Northwest Bookfest in 2003 and after a couple of off years, has built to a feeding frenzy. The 2009 event producer is Janet Fryberger, a board member for the Seattle Center for Book Arts (the beneficiary of this year’s proceeds), who marvels at the festival’s growth since she helped get it off the ground with Lightner. “The first year we had 30–40 entrants,” she says, “and it’s almost doubled every year since.” She adds that for the last two years, nearly 100 non-entrants have shown up just to look (and eat). 

The festival rules are simple: Your creation should be book themed and technically edible—but not necessarily delicious. “The most entertaining edible books aren’t very tasty,” notes Lightner. “Think squid ink, not frosting.” 

This leaves plenty of room for interpretation. Say, a bunch of grapes decorated with angry frosting faces (“The Grapes of Wrath”). Or “Miss Havisham’s Wedding Cake” (based on the decaying spinster character in Great Expectations), a pistachio cake festooned with dark chocolate rat turds and cotton candy spiderwebs. Some people make an actual book from food, such as Lightner’s homage to My Year of Meats—luncheon meat slices she bound together with strips of more luncheon meat. (While entrants and onlookers are invited to dig in toward the end of the fest, sampling some creations, like this one, isn’t advised. “It had been sitting out all afternoon,” notes Fryberger.) 

Book artist Ellen Ziegler has submitted entries three years in a row, including her “Vietnamese Grammar Book,” wherein she copied Vietnamese grammar phrases on edible rice papers in squid ink, and bound the “pages” with licorice string. (“Sewing rice paper with licorice string was touch and go,” she recalls.) “My challenge this year is not to pun,” says Fryberger, whose past entries have included such groan inducers as “Their Ryes Were Noshing Gouda.” (Ouch.)

COORDINATES

When: April 4
Admission: Free with edible book entry; $10 without 
Entrants (must register online by April 2): Arrive at noon to set up
Onlookers: Arrive at 1 p.m. (expect a line!)
Where: The Chapel at the Good Shepherd Center; 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N; frybooks.com

To see previous entries—as well as our own—visit Arts+Events