“Australian cuisine” isn’t really a thing. Believe it or not, neither kebabs or fish and chips are an Aussie invention. All we’ve got is meat pies, Chiko rolls and fairy bread.
As delicious as it is, we do have to acknowledge that it’s really weird. It’s cake decorations, butter and cheap, shitty bread. It’s either a really weird kind of toast, or a really sad version of a cupcake – but it’s ours.
A writer at American food magazine Epicurious took a crack at introducing our favourite almost-dessert to Yank audiences, and got it juuust slightly wrong enough for it to be hilarious.
As described, fairy bread is:
Just a delicious 3-ingredient treat: a slice of bread generously spread with butter and covered in—wait for it—rainbow sprinkles.Even if it seems unusually simple (or, perhaps, simply unusual), give it a shot. Not only is it sparkly and fun and colorful and weird, but it’s also surprisingly delicious.
So far, mostly so good – it’s not really sparkly, but it sure is fun so I’ll give her a pass on this one. She offers up her own version of the fairy bread recipe, effectively making it not at all fairy bread, but look, that’s American exceptionalism, we have to expect that:
To make fairy bread, use a nice cultured butter (even better, make your own) and spread it on thick; about 2 tablespoons per piece of toast. As for the sprinkles, although classic round rainbow sprinkles are traditional for Aussies, I much prefer the texture of sparkly sanding sugar, which makes the treat more like the sugared toast I grew up with.
No, the funny part is when and where she reckons we eat it:
Despite its striking appearance, in Australia, fairy bread isn’t considered fancy food—the toast is usually eaten as breakfast, as a snack in-between meals, or after dinner to finish off the meal.
First of all: it is a fancy food, by definition it’s a fancy food. Just looking at it you can see how fancy it is. Secondly: this makes it sound like we are at all times eating nothing but fairy bread. You know how many times I eat fairy bread in a year? Probably 0.5 times.
Anyone who is eating fairy bread for breakfast is living the kind of luxurious, hedonistic lifestyle that I can only dream of living, and if it’s real, I envy them deeply.
It’s nice to know we’re still a land of mystery to our overseas cousins. Incredible.
Source: Epicurious.
Photo: Wikipedia / Gemsling.
