The Garibaldi biscuit consists of currant

Zante currant

The Zante currant , or currant are dried berries of small, sweet, seedless grape variety Black Corinth . The name comes from the Anglo-French phrase "raisins de Corinthe" and the Ionian island of Zakynthos , which was once the major producer and exporter...

s squashed between two thin, oblong biscuit

Biscuit

A biscuit is a baked, edible, and commonly flour-based product. The term is used to apply to two distinctly different products in North America and the Commonwealth Nations....

s - a currant sandwich. In this recipe, it has elements in common with the Eccles cake

Eccles cake

An Eccles cake is a small, round cake filled with currants and made from flaky pastry with butter and can sometimes be topped with demerara sugar.-Name and origin:Eccles cakes are named after the English town of Eccles...

.

Popular with British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 consumers as a snack for nearly 150 years, the Garibaldi biscuit is conventionally consumed with tea

Tea

Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

 or coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

, into which it may be dunked in informal social settings. The biscuits also exist under different names in other countries including New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

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 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

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...

, an Italian general and leader of the fight to unify Italy. During the war they had to use limited rations to prepare food, the result was a simple biscuit. Garibaldi made a popular visit to Tynemouth

Tynemouth

Tynemouth is a town and a historic borough in Tyne and Wear, England, at the mouth of the River Tyne, between North Shields and Cullercoats . It is administered as part of the borough of North Tyneside, but until 1974 was an independent county borough in its own right...

 in England in 1854. It was first manufactured by the Bermondsey

Bermondsey

Bermondsey is an area in London on the south bank of the river Thames, and is part of the London Borough of Southwark. To the west lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe, and to the south, Walworth and Peckham.-Toponomy:...

 biscuit company Peek Freans

Peek Freans

Peek Frean is a brand of biscuits and related confectionery. The brand is owned in the UK by United Biscuits, although the Peek Frean name is no longer used in the UK. In the US and Canada the brand is owned by Kraft Foods.-History:...

 in 1861 following the recruitment of one of the great biscuit makers of Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, 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

Keebler Company

The Keebler Company is the largest cookie and cracker manufacturer in the United States. Founded in 1853, it has produced numerous baked snacks. Keebler has marketed its brands such as Cheez-Its , Chips Deluxe, Club Crackers, E.L...

 which briefly expanded the line to include versions filled with other fruits. Plain chocolate covered and milk chocolate covered varieties have also been marketed in the past, but appear not to have been available for many years.

In popular culture

Garibaldis are the favourite tea biscuit of DCI Gene Hunt in the BBC shows Life on Mars

Life on Mars (TV series)

Life on Mars is a British television series broadcast on BBC One between January 2006 and April 2007. The series combines elements of science fiction and police procedural....

and Ashes to Ashes

Ashes to Ashes (TV series)

Ashes to Ashes is a British science fiction and police procedural drama television series, serving as the sequel to Life on Mars.The series began airing on BBC One in February 2008. A second series began broadcasting in April 2009...

. They are also mentioned briefly in the prologue of Meera Syal's

Meera Syal

Meera Syal MBE is a British comedienne, writer, playwright, singer, journalist, producer and actress. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created Goodness Gracious Me and became one of the UK's best-known Indian personalities portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, Ummi, in The Kumars at No...

 debut novel Anita and Me

Anita and Me

Anita and Me is Meera Syal's debut novel, and was first published in 1996. It is a semi-autobiographical novel which won the Betty Trask Award....

. Naomi Campbell, a character in British teen drama Skins

Skins (TV series)

Skins is a BAFTA award-winning British teen drama that follows a group of teenagers in Bristol, South West England, through the two years of college. The controversial plot line explores issues such as dysfunctional families, mental illness , adolescent sexuality, substance abuse and death...

, is quite fond of them. Inspector Japp offered one to Poirot in the episode in which Poirot's dentist was murdered.
In the Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

audio episode The Stuff of Nightmares

Hornets' Nest (Doctor Who)

Hornets' Nest is an audio play in five episodes based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is written by Paul Magrs, and stars Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates...

, the fourth Doctor has a soggy Garibaldi. In Dinnerladies

Dinnerladies

Dinnerladies is a British sitcom written, co-produced by and starring Victoria Wood. It ran on BBC One for 16 episodes from 1998 to 2000.-Plot:...

, Mr. Michael, the boss of HWD Components, is quite fond of them.

In the British sitcom Men Behaving Badly

Men Behaving Badly

Men Behaving Badly is a British comedy that was created and written by Simon Nye. It follows the lives of Gary Strang and his flatmates, Dermot Povey and Tony Smart It was first broadcast on ITV in 1992...

, Series 1, Episode 6, "My Brilliant Career" (1992), George (played by Ian Lindsay) tells his co-worker Anthea (played by Valerie Minifie), after Anthea hands him a package of biscuits, "I was wondering Anthea, maybe next week we could experiment, tentatively, with some Garibaldi."

In the British TV comedy The Young Ones, Series 2, Episode 1, "Bambi" (1984), a train driver (Alexei Sayle) being held up by Mexican bandits announces "It's quite interesting, you know, the number of biscuits that are named after revolutionaries. You've got your Garibaldi, of course, you've got your Bourbons, then of course you've got your Peek Freans Trotsky Assortment."
[sings] "Revolutionary biscuits of Italy / Rise up out of your box! / You have nothing to lose but your wafers / Yum yum yum yum yum!"

Mexican Garibaldi biscuit

In Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, there is a popular muffin called Garibaldi, which is basically a vanilla sponge cake

Sponge cake

Sponge cake is a cake based on flour , sugar, and eggs, sometimes leavened with baking powder which has a firm, yet well aerated structure, similar to a sea sponge. A sponge cake may be produced by either the batter method, or the foam method. Typicially the batter method in the U.S. is known as a...

, covered with a light apricot

Apricot

The apricot, Prunus armeniaca, is a species of Prunus, classified with the plum in the subgenus Prunus. The native range is somewhat uncertain due to its extensive prehistoric cultivation.- Description :...

 spread

Spread

Spread may refer to:*Statistical dispersion*Spread , an edible paste put on other foods*the score difference being wagered on in spread betting*the measure of line inclination in rational trigonometry...

, and then decorated with white sprinkles

Sprinkles

Sprinkles are very small pieces of confectionery used as a decoration or to add texture to desserts—typically cupcakes, cookies, doughnuts, ice cream, frozen yogurt, and some puddings...

.
Essentially the Garibaldi is part of the pan dulce tradition, thus it is consumed during the evening merienda

Merienda

Merienda is a light meal in Southern Europe , Latin America, and the Philippines. Usually taken in the afternoon or for brunch, it fills in the meal gap between lunch at noon and dinner, or between breakfast and lunch...

, dunked in café con leche

Café con leche

Café con leche is a Spanish coffee beverage. More similar to the Italian caffe latte than to the French café au lait, café con leche is a coffee beverage consisting of strong or bold coffee mixed with scalded milk in approximately a 1:1 ratio...

 or hot chocolate

Hot chocolate

Hot chocolate is a heated beverage typically consisting of shaved chocolate, melted chocolate or cocoa powder, heated milk or water, and sugar...

.

External links

• Discussion of history of Garibaldi biscuits