Even though Jasper is turning ten and has grown up in so many ways, he still wants fairy bread for his birthday party.
As he is leaving out the door, on his way to school, I ask him what food he wants me to make for the party.
“Chips. Chocolate crackles. Fairy bread.”
What about the party bags?
“Sour snakes,” comes the reply. Has he got product in his hair? Is that a swagger?
Fairy bread must be made with the whitest of breads. It has no nutritional value. Zilch. It is exceedingly bad for you. It must take years to travel through your intestine, so absolutely free it is of fibre. The bread must be buttered, never spread with margarine, evenly to the crusts (which can be cut off later least the children ingest any roughage whatsoever) and then the bread is tipped over into a dinner plate of hundreds and thousands. The little bits of colourful sugar glue themselves in a single, even layer to the bread, like miniature eggs that only bliss bombs could emerge from, and voila the creation is complete. Sugar on air.
Watch those skateboards fly after that consumption.
It makes me think of my favourite party foods. It was not Fairy Bread. Perhaps my longing was most for the Butterfly cakes that my mother made. Melt in the mouth cup cakes, their tops cut off and dissected to make two wings that sat atop a splodge of fresh cream and finally the whole thing dusted with icing sugar. Even small, we could get them into our mouths in one enormous bite.
Do you remember your favourite childhood party food….
the chook house 