{"id":153159,"date":"2023-04-21T08:52:15","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T12:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=153159"},"modified":"2025-03-04T13:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T18:22:11","slug":"the-edible-books-festival-returns-to-the-library-with-literary-masterpieces-that-you-eat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2023\/04\/21\/the-edible-books-festival-returns-to-the-library-with-literary-masterpieces-that-you-eat\/","title":{"rendered":"The Edible Books Festival returns to the library with literary masterpieces \u2014 that you eat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cThank you all for coming to the library to do work \u2014 or eat books,\u201d said Grey McGloon \u201921, prompting a ripple of laughter through the crowd gathered for this year\u2019s Edible Books Festival in Ladd Library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s festival, held April 7, filled three tables near the first-floor circulation desk, prompting Audrey Jennings \u201925 of St. Louis to exclaim upon entering the library, \u201cThis is the best day ever!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival\u2019s recipe is simple: entrants need only create something edible, sweet or savory, that\u2019s inspired by a book, fiction or nonfiction, to be judged in two categories, artistry and flavor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Anton Chekhov never won a Nobel Prize, he now has an Edible Books top prize for artistry to his credit. After reading The Cherry Orchard <\/em>this semester, an advanced Russian class paid tribute to the author by creating a chocolate cake with sour cherry compote, decorated with chocolate trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Moments
Topped with glittery chocolate trees and a cookie house, this cake was inspired by The Cherry Orchard<\/em>, and made by Lecturer in Russian Cheryl Stephenson and her advanced Russian class. (Theophil Syslo | Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was our first time reading a full work of Russian literature,\u201d said Grace Acton \u201924 of Harvard, Mass. \u201cVery exciting for us.\u201d Lecturer in Russian Cheryl Stephenson baked the cake, and her students decorated it during their 8 a.m. session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McGloon, a library assistant for access services, organized this year\u2019s edition<\/a>, and the judges were Cheryl Lacey, director of dining services; Laura Conforte, electronic resources and scholarly communications; Ellie Wolfe \u201923 of Northampton, Mass., editor-in-chief of The Bates Student<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Library Assistant Perrin Lumbert evoked Oscar Wilde\u2019s The Picture of Dorian Gray <\/em>with The Picture of Durian Gray, <\/em>which also won a top prize for creativity. It made quite the pungent impression \u2014 durian is a divisively popular fruit from Southeast Asia, known for its spiky outer shell and rich odor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Moments
Inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/em>, this durian-infused fruit-and-cake portrait by Library Assistant Perrin Lumbert brings to mind paintings by Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo. (Theophil Syslo | Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Surrounded by a gold-painted \u201cframe\u201d of lemon-yuzu-durian mini pound cakes, the Giuseppe Arcimboldo-esque portrait made from buttercream frosting, dried durian, lychees, M&Ms, an orange, strawberries, and marshmallows will live on, if only in memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christine Murray, a social science librarian, took inspiration from Karl Ove Knausgaard\u2019s six-volume autobiography, My Struggle,<\/em> to create My Strudel<\/em>, which won one of two top prizes for flavor. She admits that she did not struggle with her recipe. \u201cI just followed a recipe that said \u2018easy strudel,\u2019 so it might not be a canonical interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of three different Lord of the Rings<\/em>\u2013inspired entries came from Academic Administrative Assistant Daphne Comeau, who created \u201cThe Shirecuterie\u201d board, featuring puff pastry mimicking a hobbit-hole in a hillside of vegetables. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Moments
From left, Laura Conforte, an electronic resources and scholarly communications librarian, Ellie Wolfe \u201923 of Northampton, Mass., and Director of Dining Services Cheryl Lacey talk with Grey McGloon \u201921 as they prepare to start tasting the entries, (Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI made a whole hobbit-hole door with the Brie container and totally left it on my table on my way out this morning,\u201d she said, but obviously it was delicious enough to secure the second top prize for flavor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two other Lord of the Rings<\/em> entries were a map of Middle Earth made from naan, a soft Indian-style flatbread, by Library Assistant Jennifer Michel, and 11 donuts from the Italian Bakery, one \u201cring\u201d short of a full dozen, presented by Krystie Wilfong, associate college librarian for collections and scholarly communications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Moments
Representing the Lord of the Rings<\/em> trilogy, a map of Middle Earth is painstakingly painted with edible ink on a piece of naan, a soft Indian-style flatbread, by Library Assistant Jennifer Michel. (Theophil Syslo | Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A dish of \u201ctyrannymisu\u201d came from Humanities Librarian Marianne Williams, inspired by On Tyranny<\/em> by Timothy Snyder. McGloon contributed a Dune<\/em>-inspired spiced bread \u201csandworm,\u201d and sugar wafers and graduation cap cookies, from Assistant Director of Sponsored Programs and Research Compliance Theresa Bishop, were inspired by Educated<\/em> by Tara Westover, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, from Caitlin Lampman, reference and outreach archivist who won a top prize last year for gingerbread men and mice (inspired by Of Mice and Men<\/em>) came a sly entry: cheap store-bought sugar cookies, invoking The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Literary puns and pastries were the day’s fare at the annual Edible Books Festival in Ladd Library.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1422,"featured_media":153177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,179,223,11009],"tags":[12326],"class_list":["post-153159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-language-literature","category-slideshow","category-the-college","tag-edible-books-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1422"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153159"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167868,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153159\/revisions\/167868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}