Historic biscuits: 'Where the pavlova divides us, the Anzac unites us'
Australians and New Zealanders have been squabbling over pavlova, lamingtons, Phar Lap, Sam Neill and even Russell Crowe forever. Well, maybe not that last one (we love you Russ), but ownership of the Anzac biscuit is a little different, according to culinary historian Allison Reynolds.
“Where the pavlova divides us, the Anzac unites us,” she says.
Reynolds wrote the book on the biscuits: Anzac Biscuits – The Power and Spirit of an Everyday National Icon, which explains that the definitive history is shared.
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“The Anzac biscuit recipe evolved in both countries around the same time. While New Zealand may have the first published recipe in a cookery book, recipes often take a few years to filter into published books.”
Reynolds says that just as valid are the recipes found in “family handwritten recipe books”, letters and recipes published in newspapers.
“Some early cookery books recipes used the name ‘Anzac biscuit’, but the recipe was not the recipe we know today,” she says.
“The first Anzac biscuit was created after 1915 when the word Anzac [Australian and New Zealand Army Corps] came into being.
“Prior to 1915, there were many biscuit recipes baked at home that were precursors to it such as munchies, rolled oat biscuits, surprise biscuits, nutties, brownies, crispies to name but a few.”
The War Chest Cookery Book, published in 1917, by the Sydney War Chest Fund contains the earliest reference in an Australian cookery book to Anzac biscuits, says Reynolds. “However, the ingredients are different, and there are no oats, golden syrup or coconut. The rolled oat biscuit recipe on the same page is closer to an Anzac biscuit,” she says.
Because the recipe has changed so many times, Reynolds cannot say exactly when the first first Anzac recipe – as we know it today – was published. But it was probably about 1920, making the biscuit 100 years old this year.
“The important thing with the Anzac recipe is that it did not contain eggs so the home front-bakers used golden syrup to bind the ingredients, this also added to the keeping qualities and the taste,” she says.
This is what separated the Anzac biscuit from the others: it was a recipe without eggs, that used the melting method, and where the mixture was shaped into balls before baking, instead of being rolled out and cut.
Keeping qualities were particularly important at the time, because Anzac biscuits were originally featured in care packages sent to soldiers during WW1.
“The biscuit was a popular item to include in care packages because it was made from store cupboard ingredients, was quick to make and bake and much cheaper to post than a fruit cake,” she says.
“It was the importance of receiving ‘something from home’, a morale booster.”
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In letters obtained by Reynolds, soldier Paul Teesdale-Smith wrote from Gallipoli: “Supper commenced by killing a six-inch centipede and eating some of Joyce’s biscuits, very tasty, with chicken and ham paste, raspberry jam followed by an unlimited quantity and we drank Hell to the Kaiser in a flowing bowl of cocoa.”
Soldier Norman Bethune wrote to his sister Dolly saying “... the biscuits were delicious. I wonder did you make them yourself?”
The Australian humour shone through in letters home, especially when referring to the “hard-tack” biscuit included in the official “army iron rations”. Confusion reigns still, because this important war time food was also named “Anzac biscuits” by the army, on the packing cases.
“But the soldiers’ called them Anzac wafers,” says Reynolds.
The Australian way of calling something the opposite of what it actually is soon changed to overstating the fact. “These were anything but light and airy … hence the nickname used was ‘jaw breakers’ or ‘dog biscuits’.”
They were so hard soldiers would grate them into tea to make “trench porridge”. In Discovering Gallipoli Research Guide the hard-tack biscuit was described as “one of the most durable materials used in the war, reputed to be bullet proof!”
According to Reynolds the Anzac biscuit’s cultural significance is more important now, than ever. “I can’t think of another food that has come out of the vagaries of war that we still make and bake today. The biscuit connects us to our past.”
Today the core ingredients of an Anzac biscuit are butter, rolled oats (not quick oats), sugar and golden syrup. Anzacs also include flour, bicarbonate of soda, water and coconut.
“For good Anzacs you need to use golden syrup. I’m a honey lover, but I don’t think that it cuts. It might upset the honey lovers, but for me golden syrup binds it and the flavour and smell is divine,“ she says.
Time to get baking.
You can join Allison Reynolds on 23 April for a live Anzac biscuit baking for Anzac Day 2020