The tradition of food sculptures, presented to the Guests of Honor at the Mythcon Banquet goes back to Mythcon 21 in 1990: Sue Dawe took some vile mass of chicken bones and skin and presented it to author Guest of Honor Diana Paxson and, with that, a horrible and hysterical tradition was born. The following year Sue and her husband Michael Underwood and fellow conspirator Charles Coulombe came to the Mythcon banquet dressed as Fairy Hardcastle, John Wither, and Mark Studdock from C.S. Lewis' novel, That Hideous Strength, and presented "The Head" (a mass of cabbage, iirc). At the Tolkien Centenary Celebration at Keble College in Oxford, 1992, "Butter-henge" was created - one must smile about that!

And so it's gone on. When Sue missed a Mythcon, I was enlisted to contribute a food sculpture and soon it became a free-for-all and every creative soul with a clever pun and two breadsticks (or whatever) was presenting this high form of art to our horrified Guests of Honor.

Neil Gaiman, after receiving the fruits & vegetables of our labor at Mythcon 35 in 2004, wrote on his blog, "I read some excellent papers (my favourite was David Bratman's essay on the Sandman story "A Game of You", mostly because he said a number of things I thought about that problematic story), met some lovely people, and was, at the banquet, confronted by Food Sculptures: a Mythcon tradition which will haunt me till I die, or possibly beyond..." Can a Mythie ask for more?!


I remember sitting next to Connie Willis at Mythcon 27 in Boulder, Colorado, where the banquet included rainbow trout (sadly without the heads... ah, what I could have done with the heads!). As my fellow Mythies came up, asking what they could bring me for the sculpture, I asked for their fish tails and presented "The Book of Lost Fish Tales" as the History of Middle-earth Book of Lost Tales had recently been published. Connie looked on in horror and I spend the rest of the evening attempting to wash the fish stench off my hands (gack!).

Mostly it's just such a fun place to express creativity and community and stellar puns. Mythcon is always a great event and you might find it appeals to you, too - consider coming!



Some food sculptures from Mythcon 42 in Albuquerque; Catherynne Valente was our author GOH and Michael D.C. Drout was our scholar GOH. Great actively participating guests! Cat tweeted Mythopoeic Awards winners as they were announced and took her own photos of the food sculptures with her smart phone.




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