Three agreements you need to make before eating After Eight
You either love them or hate them: those flat After Eight chocolates filled with peppermint. Are you a fan, just like me, and have you brought home a box out of nostalgia? Then there are a few things you need to agree on with the people you want to share your nostalgic treat with.
It seems centuries old, and the packaging gives you a bit of a Downton Abbey feeling, but After Eight is younger than you think: in 1962, the first thins rolled off the production line at the British confectionery company Graham Edwards Rowntree and Company Limited – what a wonderfully British name. And do you remember that After Eight commercial? ‘The last one is always for James, the faithful butler.’
Favourite jumper
Bringing After Eight into your home? Make these agreements with your housemates beforehand, and you won’t have to get into a bitter argument with your sister, pull each other’s hair out, scratch each other’s records or drag a favourite jumper through the puddles in the back garden – these are random examples that have nothing to do with my childhood (sorry, sis).
Black envelopes
First: leave the little envelopes or throw them away? Few things are as frustrating as an After Eight box that looks full but is actually empty. On the other hand: weigh the box in your hand and you’ll know whether there’s still one hidden somewhere among those black tissue papers, come on, live a little!
Toothpaste
The next dilemma: fridge or room temperature. The chocolate is extra crunchy when you eat the After Eight straight from the fridge, but the peppermint filling does take on a toothpaste-like quality when you feel it squirt into your mouth while it’s that cold. A matter of character, this decision.
Whisky
Last choice: coffee, tea or booze? Place the chocolates on the saucer of a cup of tea and you get that refined pinky-up feeling of British society, practically aristocracy, like in the television commercial. But with a spirited glass of whisky, that After Eight tastes even better, and after glass three you can imagine that you’re actually British aristocracy, abandoned at this ordinary family’s doorstep so you wouldn’t become stuck-up and would learn to see the joy in life’s humble things. Such as those peppermint chocolates, the last of which you’ve just tucked behind your teeth.
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