NEWS RELEASE

JEFFERSON PARISH, LOUISIANA

February 6, 2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JEFFERSON PARISH LIBRARY AND SOFAB JOIN TO HONOR A GIANT OF CULINARY HISTORY

JEFFERSON, LA – The Jefferson Parish Library and the Southern Food and Beverage Museum are calling all cooks, pastry chefs, and other food artists to create present Edible Book Day on April 1, in which participants create books that are exhibited, documented, and then consumed on the same day.

Entries – most often a cake or similar dessert - should be edible, and they must in some way relate to a book. They might physically resemble books, or they might refer to an aspect of a story, or they might incorporate text.

Patrons should bring their creations to the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie by 11 a.m., on Saturday, April 1. Judges, to be announced later, will begin tasting at 12 noon. Winners will be announced at 1 p.m.

Examples include:

• A cake in the shape featuring Harry Potter’s birthmark.
• A cake honoring Dr. Seuss in the shape of a cat in the hat.
• A cake featuring a replica of the cover of Their Eyes Were Watching God.
• A very large cookie featuring the likeness of Ernest Hemingway.
• A cake featuring the cover of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and featuring a large tentacle coming out from the center of the book.
• A cake featuring an opened Harry Potter book in which a dragon made of sugar is taking flight.
• A green pie meant to resemble a pond with a tail, back and eyes exposed to the viewer.
• Penguin cupcakes of chocolate, cream cheese, and gummy bears as scarf.

Prizes will be awarded in six categories: Best Visual Presentation, Most Creative, Most Like a Book, Culinary Arts Students (for those taking baking and pastry art classes), Professional Categories (restricted to those in the culinary industry), and Youth.

Photos of the winning cakes will be posted to the library’s Facebook page.

Edible Book Day was created in 2000 by Judith Hoffberg and Béatrice Coron who started the event to commemorate the birthday of the famous gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a French lawyer and politician, famous for his book Physiologie du goût. The book is a witty meditation on food, as well as a discourse on the pleasures of the table, which he considered to be a science.

For more information, contact Chris Smith, manager of adult programming for the Jefferson Parish Library, at 504-889-8143 or wcsmith@jefferson.lib.la.us.

The Jefferson Parish Library system consists of 16 locations that stretch from the Lakeshore Branch on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain to the Grand Isle Branch just steps away from the Gulf of Mexico. The library system consists of two large regional libraries and seven branches on each side of the Mississippi River. The East Bank Regional Library (4747 West Napoleon Avenue, Metairie) serves as library headquarters. The Jefferson Parish Library is the second largest system in the state of Louisiana. More than 200 employees work for the Jefferson Parish Library including librarians, administration and support staff. For more information, contact the library at (504) 838-1100 or www.jefferson.lib.la.us.

For more information about Jefferson Parish, visit www.JeffParish.net. Residents can also receive regular updates by following the Parish on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (@JeffParishGov).

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Jefferson Parish Public Information Office 1221 Elmwood Park Boulevard, Suite 1002 Jefferson, LA 70123

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Gretchen Hirt Gendron, PIO