DCHP-2

Nanaimo bar DCHP-2 (May 2018)

• n. — Food

  a dessert square with three layers: a crumb base, a layer of buttercream, and melted chocolate icing.

  Type: 1. Origin — The recipe for what is called Nanaimo bars in Canada seems to have come from England (see the 1988 quotation). However, the Vancouver Sun's Edith Adams (an invented persona who presided over the newspaper's cookery columns and contests) merely re-named the bars based on knowledge of recipes originating there (Newman 2014). She then produced a recipe with that name in the Fourteenth Prize Cookbook (1953). It travelled fast. OED-3 lists its earliest attestation as an Alberta source from 1954 (see OED-3, s.v. "Nanaimo bar") and Barber (2007: 127) dates it to a Saskatchewan cookbook from 1956. Quotations (e.g. the 1988, 1992 and 2003 quotations) demonstrate the widespread speculation about the term's origin.
  Nanaimo bars have become popular internationally, but the term remains most prevalent in Canada (see Chart 1). Some sources suggest that the Nanaimo bar is on par with dishes such as poutine as a marker of Canadian identity (see, e.g. the 2007 quotation).
  See also COD-2, s.v. "Nanaimo bar", which is marked "Cdn", and ITP Nelson, s.v. "Nanaimo bar", which is marked "Canadian".

  See also: dainty  poutine (meaning 1)  butter tart  

  • According to Newman (2014), the 1953 Vancouver Sun article (11 April, p. 30) refers to London Fog bars as “also called Nanaimo bars”.