The Nanaimo bar display at the Nanaimo Museum. (City of Nanaimo Instagram)

City points to correct recipe after New York Times botches batch of Nanaimo bars

City of Nanaimo addresses 'controversy'

  • Mar. 5, 2021 12:00 a.m.

The official recipe for Nanaimo bars is enshrined in Nanaimo Museum for all to see, but bakers continue to get the ratio wrong.

Nanaimo’s iconic no-bake dessert made headlines again this week after the New York Times, on its cooking section Instagram account, posted a photo of a dessert square with a meagre amount of custard and an overly thick bottom layer.

Readers were quick to call out the Times for taking liberties with a Canadian delicacy, and the City of Nanaimo addressed the “controversy” on Thursday on its own Instagram account.

“Whether you agree or disagree with the Nanaimo bar’s ‘golden ratio,’ we can all agree with the history of how it was named after our awesome city,” the post noted, going on to encourage people to visit the museum’s Nanaimo bar display.

When it comes to questionable batches of Nanaimo bars, the Times may be the latest offender, but not the first. Canada Post went a tad overboard on the custard layer when it attempted to honour the Nanaimo bar as part of a ‘Sweet Canada’ set of postage stamps in 2019.

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