If a Kit Kat is for the office, then mountains taste of Mars

In the latest in his series, Will Gore reflects on the flavours of places and pathways

We should not worry about walking with our mouths full (Getty)

What does a walk taste like?

It might depend on the weather. Dry heat, baking fiercely on Dolomitic limestone, has a metallic tang: salt and rock and no oxygen to spare. Autumnal East Anglian mist is damp blanket and soil: flavours at once stifling and yet muffled. Mist in a northern pine forest is altogether different again: like drinking Christmas, but without the anticipated warmth of the festive season.

There are other things that tickle the taste buds unasked: the peaty detritus left smeared across your face after a full-length slide off a wet pathway; blood sucked from fingers left mutilated by an ill-placed grab at what turns out to be a thick-as-your arm bramble. Not all flavours are imposed by external forces or missteps, though.

There are the ones we relish gladly when the opportunity unexpectedly presents itself – wild blackberries, raspberries, plums, apples and cherries plucked from wayside trees; hazelnuts, if the squirrel hordes haven’t got there first (a rare thing); icy water that flows a luminescent blue in glacial streams and is so cold in the throat it takes the breath away; a swig of schnapps from a bottle generously proffered, as if from nowhere, by an Alpine guide.

And then there are the active flavour choices that go into making an expedition just what we want it to be, both on the journey and in the recollection. The snacks and energy sweets that are stuffed carelessly into jacket pockets; the sandwiches that are wrapped delicately in waterproof pouches; the cafes or pubs that are meticulously built into route-planning.

Icy water that flows a luminescent blue in glacial streams and is so cold in the throat it takes the breath away

When I think of the many miles I’ve hiked over the years, it is notable to the point of embarrassment how often food or drink plays a central role in my memories. The gritstone edges of the Peak District mean Kendal Mint Cake and cream cheese sandwiches – which is odd, because the cream cheese obsession was short-lived, yet evidently potent.

Meanwhile, the Austrian Tyrol is all about Milka chocolate – a large slab in its purple wrapper, bought in the early morning when there was still a sufficient chill in the area to guard against melting, the bar to be shared between the four of us (me, my brother, mum and dad) on those family holidays when mountains were clambered without a care.

As for Hadrian’s Wall, the overriding taste memory is of Timothy Taylor’s Dark Mild, discovered in a pub somewhere near Gilsland, where cool shade and beer threw us off track. For a long period in my twenties, I made a point of travelling light – never taking any food aside from fruit (fresh apples and bananas, and dried apricots) and Mars bars.

In normal life, I would rarely if ever buy a Mars: working at a desk requires a Twix or a Kit Kat, something with a bit of snap, a bit of crunch. But halfway up a Scottish mountain, or shrouded in Lake District fog, the effortless, soft sugar hit of a Mars is unmatchable.

It is said, quite rightly, that we should not speak while eating. But to savour the true flavour of a long trek, we should never worry about walking with our mouths full.