Top cookbooks take a bow

William Wongso, celebrity chef from Indonesia.

That's why publishers and authors from Brazil, South Africa, Ireland, France, Australia and myriad other countries are huddled in Yantai, eager to claim a piece of the market. Award winners certainly hope that their prizes will help lure rights deals now or later.

Second prize in the best cookbook competition went to Pascale Naessens, a Belgian chef-author and TV host who credits an early trip to China at the age of 22 for some of the inspiration for Pure Pascale: Natural Food That Makes You Happy.

"This is not a diet. I hate dieting!" she proclaims in the introduction. "Please don't call me a health freak－I am not interested in undrinkable superfood juices or weird and wonderful workouts. I want to live a 'real' life with 'real' food."

Natural food, she says in Yantai upon accepting the award, "is food that does my body good, food that makes me stronger and more energetic, and food that makes me happy."

A key guideline for her is combinations: "Do not combine protein with carbohydrates," she writes.