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WHEN a confectioner making mints in the town of Kendal, England, left a vat of boiling sugar unattended one day, the cloudy, solidifying mass resulted in a treat that is often labelled the “world’s first energy bar”. The dense bars have been sold as “Kendal Mint Cakes” since 1869 and they’ve played an outsized role in feats of human endurance. Among these endeavours was the first-ever ascent of Mt Everest, by Tenzing Norgay (whose 29th death anniversary it is today) and Edmund Hillary.
The part of the story that concerns us begins in 1952, when a member of an upcoming Commonwealth expedition to Everest saw an advertisement for Kendal Mint Cakes in a mountaineering magazine. The bars — a hit of sugar and mint — had been a favourite of climbers and trekkers because of the instant energy boost they provided.
This was to be the ninth British-led attempt at the Everest summit. With limited time and access, it was a now or never situation if the British didn’t want the Swiss or mountaineers from another nation to cinch the honour. The man wrote to Romney’s, the confectioners who had carried on the Kendal Mint Cake business from the family of Joseph Wiper, their original creator. He asked if they could have 38 pounds (17 kg, as much as a single porter could carry) of the treat, to carry on their expedition.
The Romney’s staff — despite rationing that continued seven years after World War II — managed to fulfil the order (and didn't charge for it). And thus it was that 38 pounds of Kendal Mint Cake became part of the 10,000 pounds (roughly 4,500 kg) of supplies that were carried by the 1953 Everest Expedition commanded by John Hunt, with Norgay and Hillary among its members.
The Kendal Mint Cakes proved very popular with the expedition, with one member writing that their only complaint was “there weren’t more of them”. Of course, this wasn’t the only food the climbers were subsisting on.
For instance, we know that the night before Norgay and Hillary began their summit, they dined on sardines on biscuits, tinned apricots, dates, jam and honey, and soup prepared by Tenzing. They also drank hot water with lemon, to counter the extreme dehydration one experiences at high altitudes.
Before they left their tent the next morning, the two men quickly drank some more of the hot water and lemon mix, and finished another tin of sardines and biscuits. Norgay carried a few biscuits, chocolates and sweets with him for the climb — these were offerings meant for the mountain’s gods. (Hillary carried a small cross.)
We also know that the expedition’s members had pick-me-up packages, containing small treats like cocoa, orangeade powder and a banana bar.
But the Kendal Mint Cakes were still invaluable, because of the peculiar dietary considerations that are inherent to high altitudes. Simple carbohydrates and sugar are far easier to digest than proteins or fats. Moreover, mountaineers have noted that food just tastes bad or bland the higher they ascend — possibly due to the nasal and oral passages drying out.
At the same time, a climber burns through about 10,000 calories on a normal day’s ascent — this goes up to 20,000 when summiting Everest — so skimping on nutrition is not an option. The Kendal Mint Cakes, with their intense mint flavour and sugar rush, seem almost tailor-made for the conditions prevalent during an Everest climb.
Today, Kendal Mint Cakes are still manufactured in the market town by three firms: Romney’s, Quiggin's, and Wilson’s. They produce the bars in white sugar, brown sugar, chocolate-coated and extra-strong mint flavour variants. And while Norgay and Hillary’s Everest summit may have been their highest moment, it certainly wasn’t the first or only iconic expedition they were party to. Four decades before Norgay and Hillary, as Sir Ernest Shackleton attempted the first-ever land crossing of the Antarctic, his crew’s supplies included packages of a sugary treat that would help them their arduous endeavour — Kendal Mint Cakes.
BY THE NUMBERS:
20,000: Average calories a climber burns through, on Everest summit day
375: Calorie content of a single Kendal Mint Cake
38 pounds (17 kg): Quantity of Kendal Mint Cake bars ordered for Norgay and Hillary’s Everest expedition, enough to be carried by one porter
10,000 pounds (4,500 kg): Total weight of supplies carried by the expedition from Kathmandu
363: Porters who accompanied the 1953 Everest expedition
20: Sherpas on the team
7: Times Norgay accompanied Everest teams, before joining the 1953 expedition
29,032: Height (in feet) of Mt Everest
20-30: Percentage by which our perception of salt drops, at 30,000 feet
15-20: Percentage by which the perception of sugar dulls, at the same altitude
4: Number of ingredients in a Kendal Mint Cake (These are — sugar, glucose syrup, water and peppermint oil. The recipe from Quiggin’s also includes salt.)
(The words hidden in the grid are apricots, biscuits, calories, camp, Commonwealth, confection, energy, glucose, Hillary, Kathmandu, Kendal, mint, Norgay, Romney, sardines.)
