How to Eat is in no doubt about who its favourite Bond is. It has to be Roger Moore. Not for his work in the field of arched eyebrows and the perpetuation of xenophobic cliches about eastern European supervillains, but for his mysterious role in helping invent the Magnum ice-cream.

Decades before Unilever began to think about creating a – cough – sexy, adult ice-cream product, Moore reportedly floated the idea of putting a choc ice on a stick in a magazine interview. He then received a prototype from Wall’s, now part of Unilever.

Thus, Moore may – possibly, who knows, but let’s go with it – have inspired the creation of a lolly that, since its launch in Germany in 1989 (and you thought the wall coming down was that year’s big Berlin story), has gone on to become the world’s biggest single ice-cream brand, worth £2bn globally in 2015.

That revenue is little surprise, given the enthusiasm with which Unilever has launched endless Magnum variations and spin-offs: minis, bites, crackable chocolate-coated ice-cream tubs, chocolate bars and thins. It is working hard to maintain its brand-cachet over a host of cheaper imitators known in the trade as “ice-cream sticks”. For the sake of simplicity, though, we will stick to calling them Magnums in this column.

When

Historically, the Magnum – boxed, expensive, so rich you could only manage one – was a rare treat; a Saturday night dessert unveiled when there was something special to celebrate. However, the emergence of cut-price supermarket doppelgangers of the classic Magnum (Asda’s Moments, Sainsbury’s Indulgence, Iceland’s 4-for-£1 Majestics etc), has turned the Belgian chocolate-covered vanilla ice-cream stick into, if not an everyday pleasure, then a regular one.



True, in some cases, the supermarket Magnums may lack a little razzle-dazzle. The chocolate may be thinner than on the real thing, or the ice-cream may lack that hallmark luxurious density. But, often, that deficit is marginal. Moreover, as regular HTE readers will know, there is no such thing as objectively bad ice-cream. There are just different grades of ice-cream to be enjoyed at different times, depending on what you can afford.

It is a godsend that Magnums are now an affordable indulgence. Photograph: Alamy

If the classic Magnum moment is still after tea, as a treat (give it 30 minutes, let your tea settle, you cannot be too full or it will make you nauseous), it is nonetheless a godsend that Magnums are now an affordable indulgence at other crucial moments. For instance, when you crawl from your pit some time after 11am, weak and queasy, incapacitated by a 360° physical and existential hangover, a cooling Magnum is a balm for the body and soul. It provides the sugar you crave and its fundamentally childish flavours evoke a more innocent time. A time that, yes, with a little discipline and different friends, you could return to.

Similarly, in a heatwave, when you are all hot and bothered, baking in dry heat or wading through the clammy claustrophobia of the city, taking a moment out with a Magnum is restorative. Not because this is a refreshing ice lolly. It is not. But in the intensity of that few minutes, that period of pleasure, you transcend the corporeal world. You forget the heat, the sweat trickling down your back. You forget yourself.

Where

The “where” is less important than your posture. You need to work with a Magnum to get the most out of it. You need to be both fully focused on the task in hand, but able to move your head and arms freely. Therefore, you need to be sitting down. Not lying down. And not walking, unless, in this distracted state, you are happy to lose half that chocolate coating to the pavement.

Ideally, all this will be done alone. Do not talk to someone while they are in the Magnum zone. Short of, “Did you know your left leg is on fire?”, nothing you have to say is important enough to warrant disturbing the serene peace of that moment.

How

If you look at the ingredients, most of the chocolate found in everyday ice-cream is actually a “chocolatey” or “chocolate-flavoured” substance. It is a lab-engineered variant on chocolate used because, ordinarily, freezing causes the fatty acids in chocolate to become powdery and gritty. But the chocolate on Magnums is real chocolate. The Belgian producer Callebaut designed it for Unilever, deliberately to withstand minus 40C temperatures while retaining its traditional characteristics.

Therefore, it is something to savour. HTE has read of people who can make a Magnum last for 30 minutes. That is a feat of tantric consumption it can only admire, awestruck. But certainly, you want to string this out for as long as possible.

Begin not by savagely biting into it. If you do, the chocolate shell will shatter. Photograph: Alamy

Think of a Magnum as two courses. Begin not by savagely biting into it (note: if you do, the chocolate shell will shatter; the Magnum is designed to nudge people away from biting). Instead, use your front teeth to prise off all the chocolate.

Start – and this is important – along the right-hand edge of the Magnum, at the bottom, near the stick. Hold it just above your mouth, tilting it towards your face slightly, holding it diagonally so it points away over your left cheek. This way, if any pieces break off or are left hanging from the ice-cream centre, you are perfectly positioned to catch them as they fall, or nibble them away before they do.

From the sides, then move on to the Magnum’s wide fascias, where you can lever off larger pieces of thick chocolate. HTE is aware of people – prissy, uptight people – who awkwardly fold the wrapper back around the stick to avoid any stickiness on their fingers, and/or eat them over plates to catch any falling chocolate. HTE says: recline gently, live a little, but don’t wear a brand new T-shirt.

Once the chocolate has been painstakingly removed, it is time to eat the ice-cream. Again, do not bite. Do not suck at it like a toddler. Do not lick even. Instead, working from the tip down, put a comfortable amount of Magnum in your mouth and then gently pull it out, allowing your lips to shear a few millimetres of ice-cream away from the surface. And repeat. Continue down to the stick.

Note: these instructions apply only to the classic – and by far the best – milk chocolate Magnum. The nutty versions, where the smooth, velvety texture of the chocolate is interrupted, are far less enjoyable, while those with a sauce (eg salted caramel) injected under the surface of the chocolate are impossible to eat in this preferred lingering fashion.

Similarly, the Magnums with sauces swirled through them are curiously unsatisfying. That textural contrast, between the dense ice-cream and the almost jellified sauce, is so odd you cannot settle into the experience.

Disposal

If you cannot immediately bin the wrapper, you must, before eating, hold the Magnum in your mouth by the tip, using a gentle pressure from your lips, without biting into it – think of the animal kingdom and mothers carrying their newborn offspring in their jaws – and quickly, while holding the Magnum in your mouth, tie the packet in a knot. This takes practice, but it prevents any melting spillage from tiny remnants of chocolate or ice-cream that have clung to the interior of the packet.

Once you have finished, that knotted packet is a convenient place to prop up the iconic paddle lolly stick without making a sticky mess on, say, a coffee table or the arm of the settee. You do not have to immediately move to find a bin. You can chill and enjoy the post-gustatory glow.

Drink

The rule is your drink should be sweeter than your food, which is why ice-cream is notoriously difficult to pair with wine. As you will know if you have ever taken a swig of dry, fruity, acidic sauvignon blanc while eating a sugary dessert, that clash turns the wine into either a cacophonous jangle of sharp-elbowed flavours or a dull, flabby mess.



A glass of sherry, especially pedro ximénez, is your go-to drink with a Magnum. Photograph: JD Dallet Therin-Weise/Getty Images/Age Fotostock RM

If you need alcohol with your Magnum, pedro ximénez, the sweetest cousin in the sherry family – up to 450g of residual sugar per litre – will work far better. Although, that Venn diagram intersection of Magnum and craft beer fans, will no doubt prefer to go with a stout or porter with pronounced coffee or chocolate notes.

So Magnums, how do you eat yours?