Shetland is a winner at global cookbook awards

Shetland Food and Cooking by Marian Armitage has been named the winner in the “Food Promotion” category at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in China.

Marian has collected the prize in the last half hour and speaking to The Shetland Times from Yantai province said she was thrilled.

“I am absolutely delighted, really thrilled,” she said. “There are lots of people here and when I made my little acceptance speech I thanked The Shetland Times Ltd, my publisher and all the Shetland people who helped me to be able to write the book.

“I’m proud to be a Shetlander and I’m passionate about food.”

Marian was wearing a “beautiful Shetland lace scarf” and was draped in the Shetland flag as she accepted her award. She even made some of her acceptance speech in Chinese thanks to help from staff at Sandwick Junior High School where Mandarin lessons are now part of the curriculum.

That went down very well and she has been the only winner to attempt it, she said.

She has already enjoyed a glass of champagne to celebrate but is looking forward to tomorrow when she will give a presentation extolling Shetland, its food and culture to other delegates at the awards event.

• More to follow with full coverage in Friday’s Shetland Times.

• Shetland Food and Cooking is available at The Shetland Times online shop.