Some of these have been approved for human consumption in other countries, such as Easy Leaf's edible gold and silver in Italy.

Leave the choice of sushi to her and tuna will be decorated with leaves of edible gold.

The others are proud and pompous places where costumed waiters glide across acres of marble to serve food decorated with edible gold.

She will decorate tuna with leaves of edible gold, and stuff squid with spiced cod roe and cut it into pinwheels.

Children appreciate this food even more because everything looks so beautiful, occasionally draped in sheer slices of edible gold that flutter like butterflies each time they catch a moving current of air.

They were followed by the most elaborate dessert I've had at Cellar in the Sky, a hazelnut dacquoise topped with edible gold and embellished with frozen chocolate mousse.

Costing £22,000 and shaped like a Fabergé egg glazed with edible gold leaf, it was also decorated with a two-carat diamond and infused with five grams of edible 23-carat gold.

It turns out that our fondness for jelled foods comes from the British, who began making molded "jellies" as early as medieval times, when artistic cooks decorated them with edible gold and silver.

Hunger, you would have thought, came out of the east like the sun, and the evening was made of edible gold.

It contained cheddar mixed with white truffles and sprinkled with edible gold dust, and cost £110.59.