Slippery Bob
Slippery Bob is a historical dish made by frying kangaroo brains in emu fat. Edward Abbott provides a recipe in his 1864 cookbook The English and Australian Cookery Book, directing cooks "Take kangaroo brains, and mix with flour and water, and make into batter; well season with pepper, salt, etc; then pour a table-spoonful at a time into an iron pot containing emeu [sic] fat, and take them out when done." Slippery Bob, Abbott writes, was "'Bush fare', requiring a good appetite and excellent digestion." Abbott identified his source for the Slippery Bob recipe as an "old hand", noting that he could not find a young person who knew of the dish.[1]
Slippery Bob is among the best known of Abbott's recipes―writing at the end of the 20th century, Barbara Santich describes Slippery Bob as part of a national mythology alongside damper and pan jam,[a] assuming a place in Australia like the bunyip.[3][4] It is typically cited as a novel dish, without counterpart in British cuisine, although food historian Jacqueline Newling characterises it as similar to many other fried-brain dishes.[5] The dish was prepared on the Australian cooking show Gourmet Farmer Afloat, where it was suggested cooks without kangaroo brains could use sheep brains. After preparing, the host concludes: "I think that cooking it once is enough".[6]
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]References
[edit]- ↑ Connor 2025, p. 57.
- ↑ O'Brien 2016, Advance Australia Fare.
- ↑ Santich 2013, p. 64.
- ↑ Denholm, Matthew (6 September 2014). "Dinky-di dining from Edward Abbott's cookbook, Australia's first". The Australian. Retrieved 1 October 2026.
- ↑ Newling 2022, p. 178.
- ↑ O'Meara, Ross (17 September 2015). "Slippery Bob". SBS. Retrieved 1 October 2026.
Sources
[edit]- Connor, Michael (April 2025). "A Taste of History: Lessons from an Australian Aristologist". Quadrant. Retrieved 1 October 2026.
- Newling, Jacqueline (2022). "'Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears the Crown': Lamb or Kangaroo, Which Should Reign Supreme? The Implications of Heroising a Settler Colonial Food Icon as National Identity". In Ranta, Ronald; Colás, Alejandro; Monterescu, Daniel (eds.). 'Going Native?': Settler Colonialism and Food. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-96267-8.
- O'Brien, Charmaine (2016). The Colonial Kitchen: Australia 1788-1901. London: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-4982-0.
- Santich, Barbara (2013) [1996]. Looking for Flavour (Expanded ed.). Kent Town, South Australia: Wakefield Press. ISBN 978 1 74305 207 5.