#8 ANZAC biscuits
Last week's theme continues , where I referenced love ones going overseas to destinations that were making headlines for all the wrong reasons, such as bombs and missiles. Little did I realise that mother nature was also at work and creating havoc with Hurricane Maria right in the path of the island of Dominica - just where my brother in-law was. Hurricane Maria ripped through Dominica as a category four storm damaging hundreds of homes, and the island was afterwards, as one news reporter described, "deathly silent". The island lost all contact with the outside world. In the age of instant communication, one gets use to people being there, despite the distance. So the next 48 hours of no news was rather anxiety provoking for the family. You are powerless to do anything... if only you could.
This is of course has been an emotion felt by many, for family of soldiers, for intrepid travellers of yesteryear where a couple of years on board a ship exploring separated from family was just an accepted fact. What can you do when left behind ... cook of course! There is a need to distract and pull your energy into some activity. Cooking biscuits was one such activity performed during WW 1. ANZAC biscuits are synonymous with "the war that would end all wars", however contrary to popular belief there were no ANZAC biscuits at Gallipoli. The standard army biscuit was a rock hard tooth breaker also called the ship's ANZAC biscuit. The ANZAC biscuit as we know it, is an oat based biscuit which were sold at fetes and public events to raise funds for the war effort.
Robyn Martin from Blenheim, supplies her ANZAC biscuit recipe in "The Great NZ Cookbook" and it follows the conventional ingredient list... rolled oats, sugar, flour, butter with golden syrup used as a binding agent (no eggs). Unfortunately I haven't yet cracked baking a good ANZAC biscuit. Consuming a home made ANZAC at work once, I completely derailed a meeting by starting to snack on one. People were intriged by the hard lumps, asking if it was a rock cake I was eating... how rude!
I was hoping that my attempts with a new recipe would have a better result. Well I can report that at least they were not the "tooth breaker" army rations at Galliopoli, but I wouldn't rely on them to support a fund raiser either. The best news is that brother in law has been evacuated off the island safe and sound and is on the way home and I can stop making ANZAC biscuits.
This is of course has been an emotion felt by many, for family of soldiers, for intrepid travellers of yesteryear where a couple of years on board a ship exploring separated from family was just an accepted fact. What can you do when left behind ... cook of course! There is a need to distract and pull your energy into some activity. Cooking biscuits was one such activity performed during WW 1. ANZAC biscuits are synonymous with "the war that would end all wars", however contrary to popular belief there were no ANZAC biscuits at Gallipoli. The standard army biscuit was a rock hard tooth breaker also called the ship's ANZAC biscuit. The ANZAC biscuit as we know it, is an oat based biscuit which were sold at fetes and public events to raise funds for the war effort.
Robyn Martin from Blenheim, supplies her ANZAC biscuit recipe in "The Great NZ Cookbook" and it follows the conventional ingredient list... rolled oats, sugar, flour, butter with golden syrup used as a binding agent (no eggs). Unfortunately I haven't yet cracked baking a good ANZAC biscuit. Consuming a home made ANZAC at work once, I completely derailed a meeting by starting to snack on one. People were intriged by the hard lumps, asking if it was a rock cake I was eating... how rude!
I was hoping that my attempts with a new recipe would have a better result. Well I can report that at least they were not the "tooth breaker" army rations at Galliopoli, but I wouldn't rely on them to support a fund raiser either. The best news is that brother in law has been evacuated off the island safe and sound and is on the way home and I can stop making ANZAC biscuits.
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