Slippery Bob

Uncommon card · No. 79838

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. Slippery Bob is an example of a dish that was likely used to make use of less desirable parts of a kangaroo. Its nutritional value would have been low. It is among the best known of Abbott's recipes―writing at the end of the 20th century, the food historian Barbara Santich describes Slippery Bob as part of a national mythology alongside damper and pan...

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