The UK standby for hiking and hill-walking is Kendal mint cake, which comes as a plain white bar but many people prefer the chocolate covered version, a dark chocolate bar with a white centre. Not thin like After Eights, more like the round, hard, solid, circular mint chocolates. You can buy it in the Lake District in England.
One of the Kendal Mint websites claims that Kendal Mint was taken up Everest by Chris Bonnington, which sounds very likely.
My husband took a bar up Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania.
"Delicious," says my husband. "You don't need it except up on the hill. But it's delicious even when you are up on the hill.
"In Kilimanjaro, a big hill, the highest in Africa, which takes a week to spiral up. On the last morning you get up at 2 am and walk in a large convoy. The route goes up to the rim. You walk clockwise to the highest point.
"At least, that was the route I took, we took. There are several routes up.
"When you get to the highest point you might spend twenty minutes there, taking photos, waiting for dawn. By the time I got there I was shivering.
"Then you come back anti-clockwise. And run down the gravel,
"So, first, I ate my Kendal mint cake. It gives you instant energy. I wolfed it down. In a minute I stopped shivering. It's what you need."
I asked, "How do you manage not to eat it on the way up?"
"You have breakfast before setting off. You can't stop once you are on the way up. You are in a convoy. I must buy some."
I sit at home trying not to eat chocolate or sweets. I once offered to accompany my husband on a trek. He walks faster than I do even around a supermarket. He replied, drily, "You wouldn't enjoy it. Even if you did, if you came with, nobody else would enjoy it."
Useful Websites
Kendal mint cake
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendal_Mint_Cake
https://groceries.asda.com/product/mints/romneys-white-mint-cake-chocolate-bar/709323
http://www.stricklandgate-house.org.uk/historic-kendal/kendal-mint-cake
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Romneys-Chocolate-Covered-Kendal-Mint/
https://www.kendalmint.co.uk/shop/kmc-nrg-bar-white
https://www.kendalmint.co.uk/our-story
Kilimanjaro trips
https://www.kilimanjarochallenge.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment