Kendal Mint Cake

◆ The legendary energy fix for walkers was created by accident in 1869 when confectioner

Joseph Wiper left a batch of Glacier Mints too long and the mix went cloudy and solidified. ◆ It’s made from just four ingredients: sugar, glucose, water and peppermint oil. ◆ It powered Ernest

Shackleton’s team on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914–1917, and Tenzing Norgay and

Edmund Hillary to the summit of Everest in 1953: ‘We sat on the snow and looked at the country far below us… we nibbled Kendal Mint Cake.’

◆ Three companies make it –Quiggin’s, Romney’s,

Wilson’s – and you can get it in white, brown, chocolate-covered, and extra strong varieties, the last one ideal for altitudechallenged tastebuds.

◆ It’s called cake but contains no eggs or sugar: New York customs decreed it should contain both and dumped an entire shipment into the Atlantic in the 1950s.

◆ One of the waterways flowing into the town of Kendal is called the River Mint.