I’m not sure anyone ever really taught me how to do research, which is probably why my skills don’t go much beyond Googling something. Nevertheless, determined that the same fate should not befall my adult literacy students at my neighborhood library, I decided to have them research some facts about countries. On the day we were looking at websites, one guy, who was writing a paper about Australia, decided he wanted to know more about Australian food. “Perfect,” I thought, “I have a food blog. I should be able to manage this one.”

However, nothing about Australian food really came to my mind besides the vague words “bush tucker” and the haunting question of whether Anthony Bourdain was in the Australian outback during that one episode of No Reservations when he ate warthog anus. Anyway, we typed “australia” and “food” into Google. And this, on some dude’s blog in 2005, was quite honestly one of the first things to turn up:

I tried to point out that this might not be the best fit for inclusion in his paper, but by then a crowd was beginning to form. “I know they have this thing in Australia called Vegemite,” I tried lamely and was quickly drowned out by disgusted ewwws and echhhs as we scrolled further down the page and found this:

At this point, some adolescent boys were called in from the adjoining room to determine whether this was merely gross or really gross. The verdict came in at really gross with a few awesomes thrown in. I tried to generate some interest in looking up the difference between a kangaroo and a large wombat, but felt this last possible teachable moment slide right out of my grasp and by then we were almost out of time. Ah, well. Perhaps the students will come across a more adept researcher at some point. And in the meantime…well, I mean, this is kind of amazing:

If you have any insights about real Australian food, feel free to write to us at submissions@pitchknives.com.