While traveling in Australia this summer, a sweet dish called Fairy Bread became a hot topic.
A plate of fairy bread.
Matthew Apidesh/Shutterstock
In July of this year, I traveled to Australia for 10 days. The time was filled with eating, discussing and learning about local foods.
I ate barramundi, a popular fish in Australia. I ate savory pies and wandered through Australian grocery stores until I found Pod Snickers, an Australian candy bar.
When I wasn’t eating local specialties, I was learning about them. While chatting with Australians, I discovered quintessentially Australian foods, including iconic childhood treats.
Fairy bread is a simple three-ingredient dessert: white bread, butter, and ‘hundreds of thousands’, the Australian word for nonpareils or round rainbow sprinkles.
Indigo Lampson, an Australian from Wentworth Falls, New South Wales, told Insider:
Brittany Stukpool, who was born and raised in Western Australia, agreed. “Fairy bread was a staple at every birthday party,” she said.
It has also existed in Australia for nearly a century, according to the Australian National University’s National Lexicon Centre.
According to the same sources, the dish was a product of the Great Depression, and its first reference and recipe appeared in the Hobart Mercury in 1929.
“Kids start the party with fairy bread and butter, teens and 1,000s, cakes, tarts and homemade cakes,” the paper wrote, according to the Australian National University’s National Dictionary Center.
Decades later, locals told me it’s still the dish Australian children eat at their birthday parties. .
