Soda Fountain of Knowledge (Kulcha Edition): The Magic Pudding.

The Magic Pudding is an absolute classic of Australian children's literature, written & illustrated by famous author & artist Norman Lindsay.

The pudding himself is named Albert, and although he does enjoy being eaten, as you can see from the picture he is quite a belligerent fellow. He travels about the Australian bush in the company of the Noble Society of Pudding Owners (Bill Barnacle the sailor, Bunyip Bluegum the koala - that's him looking foppish next to the pudding - and Sam Sawnoff the penguin), trying not to get stolen by Pudding Thieves.

The Magic Pudding is magic because he can change flavors to whatever you like, and no matter how many slices you cut off him, he remains whole. How useful would that be? Also, no wonder I liked this book - it's about food, and all-you-can-eat buffet at that.

The Magic Pudding is as charming as Snugglepot & Cuddlepie, but has the added joy of an unpleasant protagonist in the Pudding. Albert is a bit of a rude bastard. The classic Australian sense of humor is cheeky, impudent and irreverent, but can also be very dry, and this is exactly the tone of The Magic Pudding. I don't actually have a copy of the book, so this is the only decent quote I could find via the internet. It gives you some idea of the joy:

"None of the ordinary breakfast rules, such as scowling while eating, and saying the porridge is as stiff as glue and the eggs are as tough as leather, are observed. Instead, songs, roars of laughter, and boisterous jests are the order of the day. For example, this sort of thing," added Sam, doing a rapid back-flap and landing with a thump on Bill’s head. As Bill was unprepared for this act of boisterous humour, his face was pushed into the Puddin’ with great violence, and the gravy was splashed in his eye.

"What d’yer mean, playing such bungfoodling tricks on a man at breakfast?" roared Bill.

"What d’yer mean," shouted the Puddin’, "playing such foodbungling tricks on a Puddin’ being breakfasted at?"

The Wikipedia page on the Magic Pudding is quite good and has a little more detail, whereas I'm working pretty much entirely off memory here!

Soda Fountain of Knowledge (Kulcha Edition): Snugglepot & Cuddlepie

***Cultural Acclimatization Needed: Read this post first.***


When I was a small child, some of my favorite books featured two little blokes who could not have been dreamed of in any country but Australia.

I'd like to introduce you to Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, the most adorable characters in Australian children's literature*.


(They're the two in the front of the gumleaf-toboggan).

Gumnut** hats? Check.

Nuding it up with adorable blossom-skirted girlfriends? Check.

Riding down a gumtree branch on a gumleaf???!!! Check. They are Gumnut Babies, after all.

Although I admit I didn't remember them being quite so fat, Snugglepot & Cuddlepie are ovary-clenchingly adorable.

I would post a ton more pictures here, but I don't want to mess with copyright & stuff. Here is a pretty good site with some illustrations showing their dread enemy the Banksia Man, an adorable gumleaf house, the kangaroo cab-stand and so on.

The author, May Gibbs, did a fantastic job of weaving real Australiana into her stories.
This page, for instance, shows the Gumnut Babies looking at secondhand houses, which are actually cases which are really constructed by real grubs in Australia. We used to see them hanging off the outside walls of the house sometimes. I think the grubs cast off these cases and make new ones as they get bigger.
This page gets its inspiration from a tree called the scribbly-bark gum (here's a real one I found on Flickr). The scribbles on the bark are made by insect larvae burrowing between the layers of bark, but of course in the book, it's really the Gumnut Babies.

The stories might not carry as many levels of meaning for non-Australians, but they're still absolutely charming. I think it's partly because of the era they're from (the first book was published in 1918), but they still work today - they're just adorable and timeless.


*I won't say they're the most Australian, because even though they're totally Oz, they're no match for Albert the Magic Pudding, who will be the subject of a future post.

**For those of you unfamiliar with gumnuts, they are the hard woody fruit of the eucalyptus tree. They come in a few different shapes & sizes, but they're all sort of like little cups.