Facts About Anzac biscuit
The Anzac biscuit is a sweet biscuit, popular in Australia and New Zealand, made using rolled oats, flour, sugar, butter, golden syrup, baking soda, boiling water, and desiccated coconut. Anzac biscuits have long been associated with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps established in World War I.
It has been claimed that biscuits were sent by wives and women's groups to soldiers abroad because the ingredients do not spoil easily and the biscuits kept well during naval transportation. However, this information has been contradicted with the claim that Anzac biscuits were never sent to soldiers and were instead eaten by Australians and Kiwis at home in order to raise funds for the war. In general, it is unclear which of these two competing claims is true. However, evidence has been found which suggests that soldiers were sent homemade biscuits during World War I, suggesting that they could likely have been sent Anzac biscuits.
Anzac biscuits should not be confused with hardtack, which was nicknamed "ANZAC wafers" in Australia and New Zealand.
Origins
The earliest known recipe combining the words 'anzac' and 'biscuit' is a recipe from 1916 for "ANZAC GINGER BISCUITS" which was published in the Perth edition of The Sunday Times. However, this recipe contains no mention of oats present in modern anzac biscuits. The first recipe for something called "Anzac Biscuits" appears in an Australian publication, the War Chest Cookery Book (Sydney, 1917), but this recipe was also for a different biscuit rather than what we know to be the modern Anzac biscuit. The same publication, the War Chest Cookery Book (Sydney, 1917), also included the first two recipes for biscuits resembling modern Anzac biscuits, under the names of "Rolled Oats Biscuits" and just "Biscuits". The first recorded instance of the combination of the name 'Anzac biscuit' and the recipe now associated with it was found in Adelaide dating to "either late 1919 or early 1920". Another early recipe for the Anzac biscuit dates back to 1921 in an Australian newspaper called The Argus. These early recipes did not contain desiccated coconut which is present in many modern Anzac biscuits. The first recipe for an Anzac biscuit containing the desiccated coconut is recorded to be from the city of Adelaide in 1924.
In 1919 in New Zealand a recipe for Anzac Crispies in the eighth edition of the St Andrew's Cookery Book had similar ingredients to modern Anzac biscuits.
Current popularity
Today, Anzac biscuits are manufactured commercially for retail sale. Because of their historical military connection with the ANZACs and Anzac Day, these biscuits are still used as a fundraising item for the Royal New Zealand Returned Services' Association (RSA) and the Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL). Special collectors old-style biscuit tins with World War military artwork are usually produced in the lead up to Anzac Day and sold in supermarkets, in addition to the standard plastic packets available all year. The official RSL biscuit is produced by Unibic under licence.
A British (though still Australian-produced) version of the Anzac biscuit, supporting the Royal British Legion, is available in several major supermarket chains in the UK.
Legal issues
The term Anzac is protected under Australian law and cannot be used in Australia without permission from the Minister for Veterans' Affairs; misuse can be legally enforced particularly for commercial purposes. Likewise similar restrictions on naming are enshrined in New Zealand law where the Governor General can elect to enforce naming legislation. There is a general exemption granted for Anzac biscuits, as long as these biscuits remain basically true to the original recipe and are both referred to and sold as Anzac biscuits and never as cookies.
This restriction resulted in the Subway chain of restaurants dropping the biscuit from their menu in September 2008. After being ordered by the Department of Veterans' Affairs to bake the biscuits according to the original recipe, Subway decided not to continue to offer the biscuit, as they found that their supplier was unable to develop a cost-effective means of duplicating the recipe.