Young Food Writer of the Year Announced

By Craft Guild of Chefs on July 4, 2012 

The Guild of Food Writers is delighted to announce that seventeen-year-old Lucy Roxburgh from south London has won the 2012 WriteIt! Competition. This was the second year that Lucy had entered and she fought off stiff competition from many aspiring young food writers.

This annual competition, organised by the Guild of Food Writers, is open to entrants aged up to 18 years old. Entrants were asked to write a non-fiction feature of around 750 words on any food-related subject.

The judges, Karen Barnes, Lucas Hollweg and Bee Wilson, were unanimous in their verdict on Lucy's feature The Venetian Pizzeria. They said 'We all felt hungry to eat the pizza as we read', and Lucas Hollweg described the feature as 'a great evocation of both the place and the food. I thought her descriptive writing was particularly good, nicely paced, detailed, but not overdone. The piece also succeeded in capturing the appetite and sense of excitement we have all felt on encountering the food culture of a foreign city.'

A brief extract from Lucy's feature: 'Woven baskets piled high with marzipan fruits - sticky, sweet and colourful.... Crisp linzer biscuits dusted with icing sugar and oozing jam. Piles of deep scarlet dried chillies, tied in bundles like flowers ...'

Lucy's prize includes all the books shortlisted for the 2012 Guild of Food Writers Awards, as well as the opportunity to have her entry published on the delicious magazine website and to have a trip to the delicious test kitchen.

The judges also highly commended:

Barkaat Ahmed (aged 14) from Birmingham. The judges' said of his piece What a delight! 'In its evocation of Marrakesh, this had drama and pace and vividly conjured its subject. It gave a real sense of the excitement of Moroccan ice cream and left us wanting to hear more.'

Matthew Carsey (aged 10) from East Yorkshire. The judges felt that his feature The Pipe and Glass 'did a good job of weaving in background information about the history of the pub, the owners and the grub, as well as offering lip-smacking appreciation of the food itself and summoning up the pleasures of a family celebration.'

Natalie Haslam (aged 17) from Staffordshire. Her feature Is it Chilli in Here? was described by the judges as 'a fun subject, wittily written with a great pay-off.'

Freya Smith (aged 13) from Bristol. The judges found her piece History of the Marshmallow to be 'informative but with a nicely personal voice. The history was delivered with a light touch and there were some good sensuous descriptive phrases: "gooey sap"; "dainty, cream flowered marshmallow plant". And we learned something: Who knew that some people are scared of marshmallows or that they are called althaiphobics?'

To read Lucy Roxburgh's winning entry please click here.

To read Barkaat Ahmed's entry please click here.

To read Matthew Carsey's entry please click here.

To read Natalie Haslam's entry please click here.

To read Freya Smith's entry please click here.