Book lovers all over the world will be eating their words on April 1st, by holding Edible Book Festivals.
These events don’t involve chomping on hardbacks or trying to bite off the corner of a tasty-looking Kindle. They’re celebrations combining food with bookish metaphor in remarkably clever ways.
As the International Edible Book Festival site explains,
April 1st is the birthday of French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), famous for his book Physiologie du goût, a witty meditation on food. April fools’ day is also the perfect day to eat your words and play with them as the “books” are consumed on the day of the event. This ephemeral global banquet, in which anyone can participate, is shared by all on the Internet and allows everyone to preserve and discover unique bookish nourishments. This festival is a celebration of the ingestion of culture and a way to concretely share a book; it is also a deeper reflection on our attachment to food and our cultural differences.
My family has participated on and off for years. Once we held our own Edible Book Festival with our boy’s book club, other times we brought entries to libraries and bookstores hosting the events. This year we’ll probably just attend as observers at Cleveland area Loganberry Books.
Find a festival by checking with your local independent booksellers, library system, or even start your own event. Get some edible book ideas by checking out photo galleries from Pinterest, the Seattle Edible Book Festival, and international entries. If you can’t make it to a festival, hang on to your inspiration. Something as clever as edible books shouldn’t be confined to one day of the year. I’d eat a book any time.
