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Situated on the east side of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is Nanaimo, a vibrant harbour

city set between the water and the hills. It's a busy

transportation hub that about 90,000 residents call home. But for many of us, the thing we think of

when we hear Nanaimo is Nanaimo bars, the quintessential Canadian no-bake dessert.

For non-Canadians, their little squares with a flavour that I can't really put my finger on

except to say it's about the sweetest thing you'll ever taste.

The history of the Nanaimo bar is the subject of many a local legend and debate,

and I wanted to look up where it came from.

It seems that no one can agree precisely where it did come from, but it seems a 1952 cookbook put it on the map.

The woman's auxiliary to the Nanaimo Hospital cookbook didn't contain an Animo bar recipe per se,

but it did contain a recipe that's very similar, called Chocolate Square. There are three layers, the base which has Graham

Cracker Crumbs, cocoa powder, chopped almonds and coconut. The middle layer is the unique part

with the magic ingredient which is custard powder mixed with cream,

butter and icing sugar, all topped with a thin layer of chocolate.

According to an article by Monte Cristo magazine, a Vancouver woman named Susan Mendelsso

started baking the recipe in the 1970s to sell so she could put herself through university.

The bars were a hit and led to a lot of media retention, which then led to a new career

in catering for Susan, as well as a cookbook, a radio show and more.

The company she co-founded, Lazy Gourmet, is known to be the first company to produce

Nanaimo bars commercially, and the bar got a big boost in 1986 when it was featured in the

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