Anzac biscuits, rock hard ration from World War I,
or delicious oatmeal baked good from Australia and New Zealand?
Well why not both, though I'm going to venture a guess as to which one I'm going to prefer.
So thank you to Babbel for sponsoring this video as we make
Anzac biscuits from World War I and from just afterward
this time on Tasting History.
So what is Anzac anyway?
Well it's an acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
and it generally refers to those Aussie and Kiwi soldiers who fought in World War I.
On April 25th 1915 Anzac forces landed at what would become known as Anzac Cove during the Gallipoli Campaign.
They drove the Turkish forces off of the shore and into the hills
but with the beachhead established they pretty much just stayed there bogged down in a stalemate of trench warfare for 8 long months.
Finally in December of 1915 the Anzac forces retreated followed by the rest of the allied forces a month later.
Militarily it was a disaster for both sides though especially the Allied side but
it is considered to be the beginning of a national consciousness for both Australia and New Zealand.
And just a few months after the retreat on April 25 1916
the first Anzac day was observed.
And in later years the day included the eating of biscuits, Anzac biscuits,
and we're going to make a recipe from 1926 from Rockhampton Queensland.
Anzac biscuits: two breakfast cupfuls John Bull oats, half a cup full of sugar, one scant cupful plain flour,
half a cup of melted butter. Mix one tablespoon golden syrup, two tablespoons boiling water,
and one teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda until they froth; then add the melted butter.
Mix the dry ingredients, and drop in spoonfuls on floured slide. Bake in a slow oven."
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Now for this recipe what you'll need is: 2 cups or 200 grams of rolled oats,
a half cup or 100 grams of sugar, 1 cup or 120 grams of flour, a half cup or 113 grams melted salted butter,
one tablespoon golden syrup. Golden syrup is kind of hard to find in the US so I'll put a link in the description to where you can get that.
Two tablespoons of water and one teaspoon of baking soda.
So this is very similar to how they're still made today though often today they have coconut,
and coconut does go back quite a ways but this recipe doesn't have any.
What this recipe also has is a lot more oats than would be in a typical recipe today but
this is the one that we're making, so for this start by whisking together the flour sugar and the oats.
Then in a small saucepan mix together the golden syrup and water, and heat until simmering.
Then add in the baking soda and whisk it until it froths.
Then pour in the melted butter and remove it from the heat.
Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
Measure out one tablespoon of batter, then roll it into a ball and flatten it into a patty.
Then place it on a lined baking sheet.
Repeat this until all of the dough is used and pop them in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 175 Celsius
for 15 minutes or until they're a nice golden brown.
Then take them out of the oven and let them cool for five minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely,
and while they cool you would be wise to do nothing but I am not wise so I decided
to make an entire other version. The Anzac biscuit that would have been eaten by the soldiers at Gallipoli.
These were part of the soldiers daily ration and many of them would call them Anzac wafers,
or sometimes even Anzac tile, and tile is an apt word because they're really just a fancier version of hardtack.
[Clack Clack]
Now I was not planning on making these. I was done with hardtack
but then the Australian War Memorial puts up a recipe that they got from one of the original manufacturers
Arnott's Biscuits Limited
and so I just had to make them. Just when I thought I was out
they pull me back in.
So for this recipe what you'll need is: 1 2/3 cups or 200 grams self-raising flour,
or if you have regular flour just add two and a half teaspoons of baking powder.
Three and a third cup or 400 grams of whole wheat flour, a quarter cup or 50 grams of sugar,
3 tablespoons or 20 grams powdered milk, and a bit less than a cup or 220 milliliters of water with a pinch of salt stirred in.
All you need to do is mix the two flours together, then the sugar and powdered milk,
then pour in the water and work the dough until it comes together.
Now it's going to be really, really dry and so if you need to add more water to get the dough to come together
do but add it very, very little at a time because you don't want to add any more than you have to.
After a few minutes of working it it should be somewhat smooth then cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Afterward roll the dough out to be a third of an inch thick,
and then cut it into three and a half inch squares.
Then dock the biscuits by poking holes all the way down.
There's a dispute of whether it should be 5 x 5 or 7 x 7, or even 6 x 6,
so I'll let you decide. I did 7 x 7.
Then pop them in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 175 Celsius for 40 minutes,
and you want them on the bottom shelf. Once the 40 minutes is over turn off the oven and just let them cool inside of the oven.
Now while these are the true first Anzac biscuits the first published recipes for Anzac biscuits
came in 1916 in the Perth Sunday Times, and was for an Anzac ginger biscuit,
and then in 1917 as part of the 'War Chest Cookery Book'
and that recipe reminds me more of snickerdoodles with jam in the middle to make like a cinnamon snickerdoodle butter cookie,
and it sounds absolutely fantastic and I'm not making those today,
but I am going to put that recipe in the description so you can check that out if you want.
Now this cookbook included a lot of recipes for baked goods that could then be sold as a way to raise money for the war effort,
and some of those recipes were for an oatmeal biscuit similar to Scottish oat cakes
that would then become the Anzac biscuit that we know today.
Now the lore of the Anzac biscuit would have you believe that
these were always packaged up and then put into airtight Billy Tea cans and
shipped off to the boys at the front, and sometimes that might be the case
but for the most part sweet biscuits were not part of the daily ration of the Anzac soldier
but if you give this video a Like and Subscribe to Tasting History I'd be glad to tell you what was.
"It is easy to think of biscuits without an army,
but of an army without biscuits never."
That was from 'The Anzac Book' written and illustrated in Gallipoli by the men of Anzac in 1916,
and they had a lot to say about the different foods that they ate, but especially about the biscuits.
"Call to mind how your finest gold crown weakened, wobbled,
and finally shriveled under the terrific strain of masticating Puntley and Chalmers No. 5's."
Another maker of these biscuits.
And these biscuits were so hard that the soldiers would often use them as postcards.
Like this one from Frank Lemon to his mother sent from Gallipoli in 1915,
and by World War II soldiers had graduated to using them as canvases for edible or rather inedible art.
One Anzac soldier who I can only assume was a professional wine connoisseur back at home decided that he wanted to
try to describe what those original Anzac biscuits tasted like.
"Have you, reader ever analyzed with due carefulness the taste of army biscuits?
Is it the delicious succulency of ground granite
or the savory toothsomeness of powdered marble?
Do we perceive a delicate flavoring of ferro-concrete
with just a dash of scraped iron railings?"
I just love that so much. :D
Anyway they would get about a pound of this every day along with a pound of beef, that was corned beef,
and then it was canned with gelatin and they called it bully beef which was a play on the French 'bouilli de boeufe'.
And it doesn't seem to be as despised as the biscuits, but only just.
"It's bad enough to be eatin' bully beef,
but carryin' it as well is rotten.
I couldn't look a decent bullock in the face now for what I've said about then when it's tinned."
I really wish I could do a good Australian accent, but it turns out I can't.
My Australian hairdresser told me don't do that so I'm not,
but imagine it would be even better in an Australian accent.
Anyway the men would often pick wild thyme
which grew all over the area in Gallipoli but foraging in that area could be very dangerous because
most of the plants were inedible and some were poisonous like many varieties of hemlock.
So the Turkish soldiers probably had a leg up when it came to foraging because they knew all of the native flora.
They also knew how to get water from many of the plants which would have been a real benefit to the Anzac soldiers.
See in addition to the bully beef when available the soldiers received
a quarter pound of bacon, some cheese, and some beans, peas or dried potatoes,
and the problem with these foods is that one many of them needed to be rehydrated, and two they were often packed with salt for preservation
which makes you really thirsty, and that wasn't a problem at the beginning of the campaign because
each man was getting a little over a gallon and a quart of water, fresh water, every single day.
But that didn't last very long. See other than those plants that provided some water
there was no fresh water source at Anzac Cove, and so the water had to be shipped in from the Greek Islands
and would be under bombardment the entire time that they were trying to offload onto the beaches.
So it wasn't long before the water ration got cut by 75% to just over one quart of fresh water per soldier each day,
and when this happened the quartermaster got a call.
"The sergeant cook was the caller, and he was angry and hostile.
How the #@*% can I cook 70 beef teas 40 puddings and 200 milk diets with this blooming quarter issue of water I get.
If you want them blooming milk diets you gotta get me water or cook them yourself."
And sadly no I don't know what that bleep word was supposed to be
so you'll just have to use your imagination.
Now luckily he was able to get more water after complaining
so he could make those milk diets and a milk diet is exactly what it sounds like.
It's rehydrated powdered milk that was given to soldiers pretty much exclusively who had bled a lot
because it was thought to make you produce more blood.
Other foods that would occasionally trickle in were things like onions to help make a stew from the bully beef,
and some sweetened condensed milk to make porridge from the hardtack,
but the one thing they seemed to have plenty of was tea which was enjoyed with pretty much every meal
as long as you add some fresh water.
They also had plenty of sugar and McConaucy's Marmalade. Now a few months into the campaign during the fiercest fighting
the YMCA who had commissary huts set up in London and some of the base camps
got the okay to move closer to the front line.
Well it was dangerous to do this at Anzac Cove because they were under bombardment the entire time that they were coming ashore
but they eventually set up in a small dugout near Reserve Gully out of the line of sight of snipers, but even then
"One night a fragment of Turkish shell, weighing 12 and a half pounds found its way through the roof of that dugout."
But at this YMCA hut the soldiers could get nuts and raisins, fresh bread, cakes, fruits,
vegetables, cigarettes and all sorts of other things to make life a little bit more bearable.
But there were tens of thousands of Anzac soldiers so one YMCA hut could only do so much,
and so many of the soldiers suffered from scurvy and pellagra and other illnesses that came from a lack of vitamins,
and so at the end of the campaign the average soldier lost 28 pounds.
But let's say you did get some of those goodies, you could either eat them yourself or you could trade them for something else.
What's interesting is with whom you might be doing the trading.
See it was often the Ottoman Turks, those people in the trenches just across from you trying to kill you.
See the Turks who were also underfed had at least different food: olive oil, coffee, dried fruit,
nuts, grape compote, and lots of fresh bread
and during the ceasefire there was a lot of trading going on between the two sides.
The Turks really liked the cigarettes and the condensed milk
while the Anzacs preferred the nuts and the dried fruit.
Though when the Anzacs tried to send them the bully beef they thought that it was pork,
and so the Turks sent it back with a note saying
"Dear enemies no pork, more cigarettes."
It's something I find really fascinating about this battle is
the mutual respect that the two sides had for each other.
There's actually a monument at Gallipoli which is based on an actual event
where after raising a white flag a Turkish soldier
carried a wounded Australian officer to the Australian lines and returned before the fighting resumed.
And this mutual respect seems to have been a theme because I found a poem called 'Anzac' published in 1916
written by an Australian soldier who wrote it just after he left Gallipoli,
and it's a really long poem so I'm not going to read the whole thing but I am going to read a few stanzas.
"This last six months, I reckon, will be most of my life to me;
trenches, and shells, and snipers, and the morning light on the sea thirst in the broiling midday, shouts and gasping cries,
Big guns talk from the water, and... flies, flies, flies, flies, flies!
And all our trouble wasted! All of it gone for nix!
Still... we kept up our end and some of the story sticks.
But, seeing we had to clear, for we couldn't get on no more, I wish that instead of last night, it had been the night before.
Yesterday poor Jim stopped one. Three of us buried Jim-
I know a woman in Sydney that thought the world of him. She was his mother I'll tell her- broken with grief and pride-
'Mother' was Jim's last whisper that was all and died.
That's where it gets me twisted. The rest of it I don't mind,
But it don't seem right for me to be off, and to leave old Jim behind.
Better there than in France, though, with the German's dirty work; I reckon the Turk respects us, as we respect the Turk;
Abdul's a good clean fighter- we've fought him and we know- and we've left him a letter behind us
to tell him we found him so."
And as sad as it is, it is amazing to see such respect
given between groups that were meant to be enemies.
After the war Mustafa Kamal Atatürk Field Marshal of the Turkish forces and later President of Turkey
said "There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets...
You the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears.
Your sons are now living in our bosom and are in peace.
Having lost their lives on this land;
they have become our sons as well."
And even today every year on April 25th a muted dawn service
is held at Gallipoli by the Australian and New Zealand governments with the assistance of the
Turkish government, though I don't know if at that service they enjoy Anzac biscuits like the ones I'm about to eat now.
Really you should let these harden up for a few months, but I let mine harden
for a few days and they're they're pretty hard.
What's interesting is that other-
you know it's not like the other hard tack that I've made because one there's sugar, two powdered milk, and three
the sodium bicarbonate. The baking soda, there's there's like bubbles which is very different
so I'm curious what the consistency is gonna be like...
...if I don't break a tooth. Let's have a go.
[Crunch Crunch Crunch]
[Crunching intensifies]
You know...
It's a little harder than I would want....
but I can see crushing it up and putting into things but the flavor
is so much better than regular hard tack.
You know it's not a lot of sugar, it's not a lot of milk powder, but there's something other than just
flour and water, and it and it really makes a difference.
That said...
I'm gonna guess that the other Anzac biscuits I'm gonna prefer.
Now there is some controversy about the texture that these are supposed to be, whether they should be very crisp or a little bit chewy.
This one started off chewy and I was like oh okay but it's actually-
[Snap]
it's gotten quite crisp
just in a few hours after baking them, so let's give them a try.
[Crunch Crunch] :)
They're really, really good. Everyone should make these. They're sweet.
You know you get a lot of the oatmeal. These are very heavy on the oatmeal,
but they're sweet but they're not overly sweet. It's the difference between an American cookie and
an Australian or New Zealand biscuit.
And you do have to call this a biscuit. You cannot say Anzac cookies.
It's forbidden by the Minister of Veterans Affairs in Australia.
They actually control what can be called an Anzac biscuit and they say that it has to be called biscuit, not a cookie,
and frankly these would not would not pass muster today nor would many of those very first recipes
for Anzac biscuits, it's got to be this oatmeal style and I'm okay with that because
it's delicious.
So make sure to follow me on Instagram @ tastinghistorywithmaxmiller
and I will see you next time on Tasting History.
[CRUNCH]