Minty Fresh

 Apart from the obvious printed "Best Before" date on the wrapper you can never be too sure how old a bar of Kendal Mint Cake really is.

It is perhaps one of the most stable and dependable products on the planet in that it's characteristics are such that it does not freeze nor at the other end of the thermometer does it melt. Interestingly its invention in or around 1869 was down to a batch of, as the legend says, glacier mints being boiled for too long and with the resultant tasty residue only being discovered the next morning of the production run. The combination of the overcooked caked texture, the minty flavour and the fact that all of this took place in a Bakehouse in Kendal made it pretty easy to give it a name. That was fortunate given that the person who stumbled on the famous mix had the surname Wiper which does not have the same sort of aura and commercial viability (unless selling things to clean a windscreen)

The properties of being able to cope with extremes put this unique confectionery offering on the shopping list for those planning an expedition whether deep in the desert, jungle, up a mountain or at the far ends of the Earth.

Of course the composition of sugar, glucose and peppermint oil make for an ideal source of energy for the most demanding of situations and with endorsements from Adventurers of the calibre of Shackleton, Hillary and Tensing, Boorman and McGregor you can appreciate the demand for those seeking to emulate those who strived in difficult terrains and climates in those halcyon days of exploration and human endeavour.

My Father was in the category of Kendal Mint Cake Officianado.

There was always a bar of the stuff in the glove compartment of the family car even though none of us knew how long it had been there. It remained pristine in its wrapper for, I would say, more than two decades and not only that but it was transferred between a few successive family cars along with the more usual contents of the glove box. 

We were in awe and respect of such a pedigree item and its historical back-story . Even though we, as children, may have been very, very sweet toothed on a particularly long car journey or just bored if it was a bit of a tedious trip we knew that a nibble or even a sniff of the ration bar was out of the question. My Father must have been very close to breaking that Kendal Mint Cake bar out as survival rations as he would avail us of many stories of difficult motoring conditions including snow drifts and fallen trees but they were not, in his opinion, sufficiently extreme or perilous for all that to justify such a thing.

I did have a bit of a personal craving to taste the famous Kendal Mint Cake and my long time membership of the Scouting Movement did give me access to the source of the delicacy on the occasions that our Troop had a summer camp in the English Lake District . That was however only if our tented camp was within a bus ride of the town of Kendal.

In those days the genuine product was not as widely distributed and sold as it is now and so it was the case that an actual mini-expedition was necessary to get some.

I can truthfully say that, to me,  the taste was not the main attraction. In fact it is quite hard to eat too much of it even when struggling along on a countryside ramble or under the exertion of defying gravity on a mountain hike. Too much sugar doesn't half make your teeth ache. The glucose element is not really that noticeable as it takes some time to get into your system. Strong peppermint can make your nasal passages painfully open to freshened air.

There is actually more kudos in just leaving the bar in its wrapper in and in keeping it for years and years in a safe but easily reached place.

As my Father would say it is best to have some Kendal Mint Cake stashed away- just in case.

Other brands and flavours are available,