Garibaldi biscuit

The Garibaldi biscuit consists of currants squashed between two thin, rectangular biscuits - a currant sandwich. In this respect, it has elements common with its larger, flaky pastry cousin, the Eccles Cake.

Popular with British consumers as a snack for nearly 150 years, the Garibaldi biscuit is conventionally consumed with a beverage such as tea or coffee, into which it may be dunked in informal social settings. The biscuits also exist under different names in other countries including New Zealand [http://www.griffins.co.nz/by-name/fruitli-0]

Appearance

When bought in supermarkets in the UK (under several brands, including own label, all remarkably similar), Garibaldi biscuits usually come in four strips of five biscuits each. They have a golden brown, glazed exterior appearance and a moderately sweet pastry, but their defining characteristic is the generous layer of squashed fruit which gives rise to the colloquial names by which dysphemically-inclined consumers know them: "fly sandwiches", "fly cemeteries", "dead fly biscuits" or "squashed fly biscuits", because the squashed fruit resemble squashed flies.

History

The Garibaldi biscuit was named after Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian general and leader of the fight to unify Italy, who made a popular visit to Tynemouth in England in 1854. It was first manufactured by the Bermondsey biscuit company Peek Freans in 1861 following the recruitment of one of the great biscuit makers of Scotland, John Carr. In the United States, the Sunshine Biscuit Company for many years made a popular version of the Garibaldi with raisins which it called "Golden Fruit". Sunshine was bought out by the Keebler Company which briefly expanded the line to include versions filled with other fruits, but ultimately killed the product entirely.

ee also

*Flies graveyard

External links

* [http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/biscuits/views.php3?filter=10 Discussion of history of Garibaldi biscuits]

References