Entertainment

Kangaroo Island roadkill recipe book goes viral

As shocking as it sounds, it’s not all that meets the eye, with an important message behind the viral recipe book from Kangaroo Island.

Photo credit: Tim Leeuwenburg

As shocking as it sounds, it’s not all that meets the eye, with an important message behind the viral recipe book from Kangaroo Island.

Roadkill Recipes – A Cookbook for Visitors to Kangaroo Island was published in 2006 by Wrong Side of the Road founder Patricia Leeuwenburg and her husband, rural and remote GP on Kangaroo Island, Tim Leeuwenburg.

At first glance, it has us wondering what on earth is this book all about, it can’t be serious, can it? Well thankfully, it’s not, but it’s certainly grabbing our attention and the hidden message within the book is worth finding out.

Satirising the plethora of glossy cookbooks on the Australian market, Roadkill Recipes – A Cookbook for Visitors to Kangaroo Island, emphasises serious conservation and road safety messages under the guise of Patricia and Tim’s wacky sense of humour.

With a number of visitors to the great Australian destination, the book came about after the duo had scouted the island logging roadkill numbers as a part of Patricia’s thesis studies at UniSA, and seeks to educate and highlight the adverse reality of tourism in relation to roadkill incidents that take a harsher toll on less considered species such as the goanna, echidna and bandicoot.

Reflecting how Australian native animals use both the road and environment as transport corridors, the book has a focus on the island’s contemporary predator – the deadly car and truck – which leave such species in vulnerable positions and on the verge of extinction.

Although distasteful to most, roadkill remains a harsh reality of the modern Australian environment and Patricia and Tim seek to bridge the divide and establish a synergy between wildlife conservation, creative art through a variety of media and the weirdly interesting topic of roadkill.

Following the huge success of the first recipe book with local and interstate media attention, the pair released a second book in June 2008 titled Roadkill Recipes: Australian Wildlife on the Verge which is aimed at a broader Australian audience and wider range of species in need of protection from roadside incidents.

Part profits from the books goes towards funding Wrong Side of the Road’s bumper sticker campaign – which creates free bumper stickers focused on highlighting the presence of wildlife on KI’s roads – and various other conservation projects.

Patricia hopes to produce a third addition to the magnificently wacky books that have a global scope but for now, both exisiting publications are available for purchase for $20.00 online, or in bookshops across Kangaroo Island.

If ‘Skippy the Bush Vindaloo’ sounds like your cup of tea, or maybe you’re more of a ‘Pad Thai Penneshaw Penguin’ kind of guy or gal, this comically educational book is something you have to pick up.

You can grab your own copy of the roadkill recipe books online here.

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