Giuseppe Garibaldi

A couple of years ago, I was together with some English friends and one of them was wearing a red top and blue trousers. I said: “Jo, you are dressed like Garibaldi today!”. She looked puzzled at me and asked: “the biscuit?”. It was my turn to be puzzled, then!

Being Italian, I know almost everything about Giuseppe Garibaldi (he’s the one who unified our country), but I didn’t know anything about the Garibaldi biscuit! Jo, being English, knew everything about the Garibaldi biscuit and nothing about Giuseppe Garibaldi himself!

We spent the next half hour exchanging info about both the biscuit and the man and we discovered that the biscuit takes its name from Garibaldi, who visited the UK in 1854. I think the biscuit was made in 1861, the year Italy was born!

In every single Italian village, town and city there’s at least a Via Garibaldi, a Piazza Garibaldi, a café Garibaldi, a cinema Garibaldi, a hotel or restaurant Garibaldi and of course a statue of him! We’ve got the Via, the café and the statue!