Fairy bread is an Australian treat often served at children's birthday parties. It is also completely unfamiliar to most Canadians.
We started by asking people what they hell they thought "fairy bread" is.
Elamin: I had no idea. None. I've never heard of it. I guess when I hear the term, I imagine some sort of pudding? Honestly, I don't even know.
Scaachi: A nightmare.
Kat: I assumed it was just an Australian brand of bread. If their ice cream is called Golden Gaytime, why couldn't they have something called Fairy Bread?
Ishmael: I thought it might be a kind of raisin bread.
This is what it actually is:
It's basically bread, butter, and sprinkles (called 100s and 1000s by Aussies). That's it. Really.
The first round of testing involved a lot of excess butter and a lot of Australians yelling at us.
Seriously, Australians have *A LOT* of opinions about fairy bread.
Craig:
1. This is not going to taste good.
2. A drunk person came up with it.
Lauren: This is the cutest bread to ever exist and every little kid at a tea party deserves all of it. But also. Like. Why? Who thought to put these things together.
Kat: It seemed like it had the POTENTIAL to be good — one of those weird foreign foods that looks ridiculous but is secretly delicious once you give it a chance.
Elamin: My first thought was "whatever you're doing, you're doing it wrong, Australia — this can't possibly be good!!" I mean it's just sprinkles on bread.
Sarah: It's so cute-looking! Definitely worthy of an Instagram post. It looked like something Katy Perry would eat for breakfast.
Ishmael: I thought it looked amazing, but also really bad for me.
Scaachi: Looks like a mistake!
Finally it was time to actually put it in our mouths.
Craig: Like someone was making toast but then fucked up and put the butter on right away, and because they'd been drinking all day they accidentally put the bread into a pile of sprinkles that they'd knocked on the floor when they were looking for more booze in the cupboard. Basically, a fucking mouth crime.
Lauren: It tasted mostly like buttered bread, although the crunch of the sprinkles was very pleasing.
Kat: It tasted like... Nothing in particular. Buttered bread. But crunchy. I was actually pretty disappointed because the sprinkles didn't add any particular taste to it, just texture, and and the sprinkles made it annoying to eat.
Elamin: WELL WELL WELL this is where I was proven wrong. At first it tasted pretty good, like I could get used to the taste and it wouldn't be weird and I'd enjoy it. But it turns out that's because I didn't butter it properly the first go-round. When I had the second piece, the perfect piece, it was heaven.
Sarah: I wasn't really that impressed at first. I definitely thought it would taste a lot sweeter. I mean, it's covered in SPRINKLES. It was not a familiar texture, but that didn't stop me from going back bite after bite. It was equally addicting and confusing.
Ishmael: It tasted great. Honestly, if I'd known about this magical (and simple) snack as a kid I would have gorged myself on it.
Scaachi: Like a mistake.
Craig: Yet another thing in Australia that can kill you.
Lauren: I think, too often, we only think of Australia in terms of its weird, adorable animals. But we should also be thinking about its weird, adorable food.
Kat: Fairy bread: Looks pretty, tastes like nothing. Let me have a Golden Gaytime instead.
Ishmael: This is a rare thing from Australia that is definitely not going to poison me.
Elamin: I probably wouldn't have that regularly, or even semi-regularly, but I can see how if I grew up with that being a regular snack, I'd gravitate towards it often. It'd delicious and fun and easy and quick. Way to go, Australia.
Sarah: It's pretty as hell. I want to try it with Nutella instead of butter though! That's the only change I would make because it turns out, there's a lot of DONT's when it comes to fairy bread that we quickly learned after reading the comments section #alwaystriangles #nevertoasted
Scaachi: No.
