How to make perfect nanaimo bars – recipe | Felicity cloake's How to make the perfect …

This Canadian staple has long been interpreted differently, with various nuts and biscuit bases, but which version nails it?

Canadians are famously nice – think laid-back Keanu Reeves, sunny Pamela Anderson, the charmingly incompetent Inspector Gadget – except when it comes to their beloved nanaimo bars. Get the ratio of this three-tier national treasure wrong, as the New York Times stood accused of doing in 2021, when its Instagram account posted a picture of squares that one user described as “an insult to Canadians everywhere”, and you’ll discover you can push them only so far.

The Times is not alone in attracting ire. So popular are nanaimo (pronounced nuh-NYE-mo) bars, named after the British Colombian logging and mining town where they are said to have originated, that Canada Post put them on a stamp in 2019 … only to face similar howls of outrage, albeit in Canadian: “One hesitates to be critical,” Nanaimo’s mayor explained carefully, “but it’s not a very accurate depiction.”