Kendal both poles of the Earth, its popularity is mainly due to the very astute decision of the original manufacturer's great-nephew to market it as an energy food, and to supply Ernest Shackleton's 1914–17 Trans-Antarctic Expedition. By the time the business was sold to competitor Romney's in 1987 there were several rival mint cake producers, many of which are still in business. Snuff production in Kendal dates from 1792, when Kendalian Thomas Harrison returned from Glasgow, Scotland, where he had learned the art of snuff manufacture. He also brought with him 50 tons of second-hand equipment, all carried on horse back.
Parkin (cake) "tharf" or "theorf" meant unleavened, un-fermented, solid tough or sodden in Old English. John Wycliffe in his translation of the Bible in 1389 (Mark Ch.14.v. 1) calls unleavened bread a 'tharf loove' Parkin is virtually unknown south of the Humber. It is eaten in an area where oats were the staple grain for the poor, rather than wheat. It is closely related to tharf cake – an unsweetened cake cooked on a griddle rather than baked. The traditional time of the year for tharf cakes to be made was directly after the oat harvest in the first week in November.