Book awards: have your cake and read it too

Entries for the CPIT Edible Book Awards included a Lord(e) of the Rings cake.

Readers become creative bakers with edible story-telling competition entries.

A Lorde figurine performing atop three circular cakes to depict The Lord of the Rings was among creative entries for a Canterbury edible story-telling competition yesterday.

Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology's annual Edible Book Awards were held yesterday, attracting staff and students with an appetite for literature.

A mini ham dressed to perfection with pineapple and glace cherries represented Shakespeare's Hamlet, a loaf of olive bread twisted into an 'R' formation showed Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist and a raspberry flavoured pie decorated with four pacifiers illustrated Raspberry Pi for Dummies.

A panel of judges made up of local writer and columnist Joe Bennett, The Press Zest editor Kate Fraser and a CPIT representative looked for the funniest, most appetising and most imaginative entries.

Prizes were awarded for Best Interpretation, Funniest, Most Imaginative, Most Delectable, Best of the Best and Best Interpretation.

The overall winner was a purple plate of purple cakes with a purple bow to show The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

The popular event was part of the International Edible Book Festival that began in 2004. It has been celebrated the world over with large events in Hamburg and the United States on April 1 each year.

It is held on April 1 to commemorate both April Fools' Day and the birthday of French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), famous for his witty meditation on food, Physiologie du gout.

Last year, the Canterbury event was won by a cake adorned with a man fishing and a pile of 22 chocolate fish as Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22.

The Life of Pi was also shown, with a tiger figurine roaming between two meat pies and Dangerous Liaisons imagined with baking powder and vinegar sitting side by side.

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