If the title intrigued you, hang on just a second and I'll get to the point. First I want to send a HUGE THANK YOU to Greg Stephens, my Secret Santa, who sent me the most wonderful assortment of things from his area, including the local a paper, a nice touch!! There was a fine little cookbook with BEAUTIFUL artwork which my son Michael loved, a pair of his CD's (equally wonderful), and just a fun little package to open overall. One item though I need to discuss, hence the title of this thread.

Over the past seven years on Mudcat, by far the biggest topic outside of music related issues has not been political at all. It's food. And over those past years I have shared some American regional dishes and recipes with folks around the world and had them share theirs with me. I think we have all enjoyed those threads enormously. Additionally we have discussed all manner of food related topics from utensils to antacids and god knows what else.

Many times someone has sent me something from there part of the world and I have often done the same. I have even had a proper Yorkshireman stand in my kitchen (actually sister Connie's kitchen) and demonstrate how to make a proper cuppa' in detail, using proper Yorkshire tea, a proper teapot, and the proper technique. I wonderd afterwards if I took a proper piss but I didn't ask. I was sent a jar of Vegemite from Oz and Marmite from GB and I now have even found sources for them locally although I have friends here who suggest a substitute could be made from pine tar pitch and lampblack! Greg Stephens has now introduced me to something which Iwill have to find some source for as well.

In my Christmas package was this thing about 2" by 5" and about a half inch thick which felt and weighed like something akin to a brick......a very hard brick! Yet the wrapping said that inside was something called a "Kendal's Mint Cake" and it was indeed food. One certain thing, it sure didn't seem to be cake as I generally knew it! I thumped it another time or two and figured it was more closely related to a diamond then any food I had ever eaten. My first thought was along the lines of how many teeth I would break biting into the thing but then I read on the package their proud proclamation that Sir Edmund Hilary had carried one to the top of Everest where he and Norgay shared it upon reaching the summit. Their only regret, I read on, was that they only had one! The only other information on the wrapper was the ingredients of which there are only two..........sugar and mint.

Now I gotta' tell ya' that if I were able to have eaten anything of this high a sugar potency as a kid, I would have entirely rotted teeth before turning eighteen and never been able to bite into one of these damn things. I decided there muat be something in the water all over the United Kingdom that washes away the sugar-decay effect or maybe your teeth are rotting out of your heads and I hadn't paid attention. I will be looking a lot more closely from now on.

I decided to take the bar still wrapped to Sunday Dinner at Connie's place that week so I called ahead to be sure Wayne's bandsaw was working properly as I felt pretty sure we'd need it. I mean I don't recall reading about it, buty for all I knew, Hilary had carried a bandsaw with a 27,000 foot extension cord up Everest. After supper I carefully unwrapped it, wanting to save the wrapper, and found that inside there were TWO bars and each was a quarter inch thick. Plus there were deep lines cut into the bars as divisions so I could now see how easy it would be to separate, no bandsaw needed. I figured a cold chisel and a 10 pound sledge would do the trick maybe.

We all had some of each bar as each was a different mint. Oddly the one bar was brown, not a color I associate with mint. I popped a nice chunk of this brownish tan thing into my mouth and gave that sucker a suck and.........SWEET JESUS IN A CANE FIELD!!!!..........My eyes crossed and the world tipped slightly to one side as I slid off the stool I was sitting on.   A few moments passed and as my sinuses cleared and my nose began to run I knew this was as strong a mint flavor that I had ever encountered. The white a bit milder but I snuck away another few chunks of the brown because anything that initially painful has got to be good!!!!

To finish up this tale I must say that we all enjoyed the Kendal's Mint Cake and like Sir Edmund only wish there had been more. Thnak you Greg for another "Food of the World" experience and now I have to go and check for additional decay.

Spaw