The Nanaimo bar is a dessert

Dessert

In cultures around the world, dessert is a course that typically comes at the end of a meal, usually consisting of sweet food. The word comes from the French language as dessert and this from Old French desservir, "to clear the table" and "to serve." Common Western desserts include cakes, biscuits,...

 of Canadian origin popular across North America. The Nanaimo bar is a bar cookie

Cookie

In the United States and Canada, a cookie is a small, flat, baked treat, usually containing fat, flour, eggs and sugar. In most English-speaking countries outside North America, the most common word for this is biscuit; in many regions both terms are used, while in others the two words have...

 which requires no baking, and is named after the West-Coast city of Nanaimo, British Columbia

Nanaimo, British Columbia

Nanaimo is a city on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It has been dubbed the "Bathtub Racing Capital of the World" and "Harbour City". Nanaimo is also sometimes referred to as the "Hub City" because of its central location on Vancouver Island and due to the layout of the downtown...

. It consists of a wafer crumb-based layer, topped by a layer of light vanilla

Vanilla

Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, Flat-leaved Vanilla . The word vanilla derives from the Spanish word "", little pod...

 or custard

Custard

Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on a cooked mixture of milk or cream and egg yolk. Depending on how much egg or thickener is used, custard may vary in consistency from a thin pouring sauce , to a thick pastry cream used to fill éclairs. The most common custards are used as...

 flavoured butter icing

Icing

Icing may refer to:* Atmospheric icing, occurs when water droplets freeze on objects they contact, very dangerous for aircraft* Aufeis, also called icing, a sheet-like mass of layered ice that forms from the freezing of successive flows of groundwater...

, which is covered in chocolate made from melted chocolate

Chocolate

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

 squares. Many varieties are possible by using different types of crumb, flavours of icing (e.g. mint

MiNT

MiNT is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST and its successors. Together with the free system components fVDI , XaAES , and TeraDesk , MiNT provides a free TOS compatible replacement OS that is capable of multitasking.MiNT was originally released by Eric Smith as...

, peanut butter), and types of chocolate. Two popular variations on the traditional Nanaimo bar involve mint flavoured icing or mocha

Mocha

-Computing:* Mocha , a Java decompiler* JavaScript, an object-oriented scripting language originally distributed under the name Mocha* Mocha, a mock object framework for Ruby-Biology:...

 flavoured icing.

Origins

The bar originated in Ladysmith

Ladysmith, British Columbia

Ladysmith is a town located on the 49th parallel on the east coast of Vancouver Island British Columbia, Canada. The local economy is based on forestry, tourism and agriculture. A hillside location adjacent to a sheltered harbour form the natural characteristics of the community., the population...

, Vancouver Island, south of Nanaimo in the early 1950s. Mabel Jenkins, a local housewife from Cowichan Bay, submitted the recipe to the annual Ladysmith and Cowichan Women's Institute Cookbook. This cookbook was sold in the early 1950s in the region as a fundraiser. It became popular in many of the province's households, especially in company towns, and was sold in many of the coffee shops on Nanaimo's Commercial Street. Tourists in the region, especially US tourists on pleasure boats came to refer to these as "Nanaimo Bars". In Nanaimo and points south to Duncan

Duncan, British Columbia

Duncan is a city on southern Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.-History:The community is named after William Chalmers Duncan . He arrived in Victoria in May 1862, then in August of that year he was one of the party of a hundred settlers which Governor Douglas took to Cowichan Bay...

, however, these were originally referred to as Mabel bars, or W.I. bars. The earliest confirmed printed copy of the recipe using the name "Nanaimo Bars" appears in a publication entitled His/Her Favourite Recipes, Compiled by the Women's Association of the Brechin United Church (1957), with the recipe submitted by Joy Wilgress, a Baltimore, Maryland native (p.52). (Brechin United Church is in Nanaimo.) This recipe also is reprinted in Kim Blank's book Sex, Life Itself, and the Original Nanaimo Bar Recipe (Umberto Press, 1999, pp.127-29).

In 1954 the recipe "Mable's Squares" (p.84) was published in "The Country Woman's Favourite" by the Upper Gloucester Women's Institute (New Brunswick). The recipe was submitted by Mrs. Harold Payne, the daughter of Mable (Knowles) Scott (1883-1957). The ingredient list, quantities, and assembly steps closely match the recipe found on the City of Nanaimo web site.

The first printing of recipes featuring Nanaimo Bar ingredients is found in the 1952 Women's Auxiliary to the Nanaimo Hospital Cookbook. They are referred to as the Chocolate Square or the Chocolate Slice. Some say the first use of the name Nanaimo Bar was in an Edith Adams cookbook printed in 1953.

Other unconfirmed references date the bars back to the 1930s, when it was said to be known locally as "chocolate fridge cake". Some New Yorkers claim that it originated in New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, and refer to them as "New York Slices". However, Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons Inc. is a Canadian fast casual restaurant known for its coffee and doughnuts. It is also Canada's largest fast food service with over 3000 stores nationwide. It was founded in 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario, by Canadian hockey player Tim Horton and Jim Charade, after an initial venture in...

 coffee shops, a Canadian chain, sell them in New York as "Nanaimo Bars". One modern reference even refers to the bars existing in nineteenth century Nanaimo.

Nanaimo's culture

The popularity of the bar in Nanaimo led local residents to mobilise to have it elected "Canada's Favourite Confection" in a National Post

National Post

The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...

 reader survey. In 1985, Mayor Graeme Roberts initiated a contest to find the ultimate Nanaimo bar recipe, and the recipe submitted by Joyce Hardcastle, a resident of Nanaimo, was unanimously selected by a panel of judges.

Recipes for similar desserts are found in various places and under various names in North America and Europe. The designation "Nanaimo Bar" is Canadian; Nanaimo Bar appears in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary

Canadian Oxford Dictionary

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary is a dictionary of Canadian English. First published by Oxford University Press Canada in 1998, it quickly became the standard dictionary reference for Canadian English. Until September 2008, Oxford maintained a permanent staff of lexicographers in Canada, led by...

 but not in other language or dialect versions. The term is also common in the American Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

, and has been used in places such as New York City, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Sydney because of international popularization of the bar by the Seattle-based Starbucks

Starbucks

Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...

 coffee chain.

In the 2003 Christopher Guest

Christopher Guest

Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest , better known as Christopher Guest, is an American screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor and comedian. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in several improvisational "mockumentary" films that...

 movie A Mighty Wind

A Mighty Wind

A Mighty Wind is a 2003 mockumentary about a folk music reunion concert in which three folk bands must reunite for a television performance for the first time in decades. It was directed by Christopher Guest...

, the character of Mickey Crabbe (a Canadian) says, ". . . I'd consider going home, making a nice tray of Nanaimo bars, lying in bed and watching TV -- that's what I like doing."

Outside Canada

Similar desserts are found outside of Canada, particularly in New York City. These have been sold in Southport, United Kingdom

Southport

Southport is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. During the 2001 census Southport was recorded as having a population of 90,336, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England...

in shops and restaurants since the 1980s. Nanaimo bars can also be found in Australian coffee shops in large cities.