Happy holidays! It’s always good to know there’s a constant presence in our lives during the holiday season and we call it fruitcake.
Why is fruitcake funny? Let’s return to that unanswerable question and look at some history.
Long ago (before the internet) when people lived in caves, they ate the ingredients that comprised fruitcake but it wasn’t until hundreds of centuries later that someone combined the ingredients in an un-edible form. That person was banished from the tribe. His picture is on a cave wall somewhere being gored by a mastodon. The cave dwellers looked at that painting like they do today at ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch.
The earliest recipe from ancient Rome lists pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins that were mixed into barley mash. Sound tasty? Was it punishment for dissing the Emperor? No that was a quick death. Fruitcake was a slow death.
Not really, but the mash gave it a slightly alcoholic cache so the people embraced it. Truly, it was better to go through life in those days, a little, shall we say ‘sloshed’.
Don’t worry, in the middle-ages they improved the recipe by adding honey, spices, and preserved fruits. Generally food was preserved with salt, but that made the fruitcake taste like leftover fatback. OK, lousier. It didn’t fly off the shelves of the local baker’s bakery either. In fact nothing flew off the shelves. People didn’t have money in those days. It was all they could do to stay alive and worship the King. (Who never ate fruitcake, but claimed he did so he could be ‘one of the people’)
It’s a little known bit of history that when Washington crossed the Delaware he kept a stock of fruitcake in the boat. Was it A: a sign to the men to not turn back or that’s what they would have to eat? B: he needed an anchor. C: a sign to the men to not turn back or that’s what they would have to eat. (There’s really no answer to that one, it’s part of the fake news craze that’s going around)
Let’s come up to the present.
I have never known anyone to actually cut into a fruitcake and eat a slice. Why? A: There’s a suspicion that it may have outlived its shelf-life. B: Since it doesn’t have a shelf-life, how can you tell? C: If I like fruitcake and want to buy more what does that make me nuttier than? D: Is ending a sentence in a preposition worse than eating fruitcake?
Answer, ‘D’
I remember the day the fruitcake arrived. We had been happy and gay because of the holiday season, but that’s when things went south. We were all afraid to open it because the package didn’t have a return address. There was no way to tell who thought so little of us that they sent a fruitcake instead of a ‘real’ present. We went through the list of people we know who send gifts through the U.S. Postal Service. Our ‘real’ friends would simply send an ‘Ecard’ and eliminate the horror of shopping.
It sat there for weeks and months because Aunt Betty believed that fruitcake, if unopened, could last well into the Spring season. Not true. It’s much longer than that.
I found a deal on 10 one pound packages of fruitcake in sealed, full color cartons on sale for $66.95. That’s seven dollars a pound. Where can you give a gift that keeps on giving for seven dollars? What do I mean by ‘Keeps on Giving?’ Recipients have been known to send them along just like a chain letter to someone on their list that could appreciate a good joke. This means the post office has been handling the same fruitcakes for years. It’s like they never really stop traveling. I’m sure some fruitcakes have more frequent flyer miles than some pilots. Post office clerks may even recognize familiar fruitcake packages. Fruitcakes are made to last. There’s one from 1902 in the Smithsonian that has been sent around the world 187 times. Why did it stop at the Smithsonian? Another un-answerable question.
When a slice was cut off and heated, it was as good as new. Don’t you wish your shelf life was as long?
A Claxton fruitcake is approximately 72% fruits and nuts. These are not heavy ingredients. A fruitcake does, however, have the mass of a black hole. How does it do that? No one really knows. Let’s go back to the post office. By this time most of the holiday mailing is over. The post office says their heaviest day of the year is Dec. 16th when you are assured of delivery by Christmas. They call it ‘customer appreciation day’ and hand out bags of chips, cookies and crackers to those in line. I guess they expect us to be there long enough to need what the airlines consider a ‘meal’. Why don’t we just cut out the middleman and send a virtual fruitcake by email. It will lighten their load and the money you save on postage will pay for some fruit and nuts for the Christmas party.