International Night

The local homeschooling group had an International night, and not surprisingly we represented Australia. Each group had to provide some sample food from the represented country and after all had tasted the food, gave a talk. Our sample foods were Lamingtons, Anzac Biscuits (cookies), Vegemite on Toast and some of Lana’s Rice Salad. Other than the rice salad, none of our choices could be made with local ingredients. Lamingtons require desiccated coconut for coating, Anzac Biscuits require Golden Syrup and Vegemite on toast requires Vegemite. Actually, we were able to get small tins of Golden Syrup at the local supermarket.
All of our food went quickly and there was some surprise that Vegemite was made by Kraft.
Our talk on Australia focused firstly on the primary difference between the two countries – water. We had a large wall map that had an overlay of the US comparing the size of the two countries. Excluding Alaska, the US is the same size as Australia. However, Australia has this huge desert in the middle. I also pointed out where the bulk of the population lived and everyone found the information new and interesting.
One of the other talks was on Greece. David asked her a question, “What is the 3rd largest Greek populated city in the world?” The girl didn’t know, so David pointed to our map and answered, “Melbourne.” Based on Greek descent, Melbourne has the third largest population in the world.