The Australian Biscuit Law

We are a weird fucking culture, okay?

In Australian law there are certain protected terms that are deemed culturally significant. We don’t want people unreasonably claiming connection to things they don’t earn. It’s like how in the United States you can go to prison for impersonating an officer, but here it’s broader than just the military. There are a set of laws, known as Bradman Laws, which are designed to make sure that if you claim connection to something we consider culturally important, you have a legitimate connection. This can be frustrating – if you are, for example, a real estate agent named Joe Bradman, you can’t call your real estate business Bradman Real Estate, unless you can claim some connection to Donald Bradman.

One of the things under this set of laws is the Anzac Biscuit, a type of biscuit made during World War 1 and 2. The biscuits were made out of rationed goods and sent to soldiers on the fronts in Turkey and Southeast Asia, so they had to last in shipping. I don’t know who made the first ones, but the recipe itself is public domain.

The Bradman laws don’t let you call any old thing an Anzac biscuit, though. That would be trading off the term, and that would be fraud. So if you want to sell an Anzac biscuit, it has to comply to – within reasonable interpretation – the recipe. And the easiest way to make the law reference the recipe?

Put the recipe in the law.

So there, sitting in Australian law, is a recipe for a type of cookie.

They’re really good, too!