As a patriotic nibble, Anzac biscuits are second to none. But for years New Zealand has had a better claim to the original recipe and name.
Now Australia might be able to take back the biscuit, or at least a few crumbs of national pride, after the discovery of a recipe published in a Melbourne newspaper in 1921.
Australian and New Zealand troops on Gallipoli in 1915 probably ate nothing resembling today's Anzac biscuit, that delicious combination of rolled oats, golden syrup, sugar, flour, desiccated coconut and melted butter.
Until now, the first Australian-published recipe for a recognisable "Anzac Biscuit" was credited to a 1923 edition of Mrs H W Shaw's Six Hundred Tested Recipes.
However, by picking through the National Library of Australia's Trove website - which contains digitised records of many Australian newspapers - AAP has found Melbourne's Argus newspaper printed a recipe for "Anzac Biscuits" on July 6, 1921.
The recipe has the right name, ingredients and method to stake a claim as the earliest recorded true "Anzac Biscuit" recipe. (Desiccated coconut does not seem to have been included in any version until 1927.)
However, Dr Helen Leach, emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Otago and the recognised authority on the Anzac biscuit, sounds a sobering note.
She points to a remarkably similar recipe - for "Anzac Crispies" - that was published in New Zealand in 1919 in the eighth edition of the St Andrew's Cookery Book.
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