Where is the ‘Fruit Cake Capital of the World’?
A, Washington DC
B, Claxton, Georgia, for 104 years, home of the famous Claxton Fruitcake.
The memory of receiving a gaily wrapped box during the holidays containing a Claxton Fruitcake is a sure sign that someone either loves you or is re-gifting.
At our house, when the fruitcake arrived, it sat there for months because Aunt Betty believed that fruitcake, if unopened, could last well into next winter. Not true. It’s much longer than that. Fruitcakes are made to last.
There’s one from 1902 in the Smithsonian that has been sent around the world 187 times. When a slice was cut off and heated, it was as good as new. Don’t you wish your shelf life was as long?
Where did it take on this quality of timelessness? Is it the ingredients? A Claxton fruitcake is approximately 72% fruits and nuts. These are not heavy components but a fruitcake does, however, have the mass of a black hole. How does it do that?
Not even NASA knows. It sent a probe to the plant, located on Main Street, three blocks west of U.S. Highway 301in Claxton which took 3 years to arrive. The reason? The unearthly looking probe was stopped by the Georgia State Police every couple of miles and asked for ID. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory programmers did not anticipate the frequent stops because they didn’t realize how many tickets had to be written by the end of the month.
You can purchase a package of ten 1 pound fruitcakes in sealed, full color cartons for $66.95. That’s less than $7 per pound. If you send them to ten people who don’t know each other, you can count on at least three of them re-gifting it back to you.
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 like a chain letter but without the guilt. 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 enough frequent flyer miles to go first class to the moon.
Let’s go back to the post office. They say 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 email a virtual fruitcake. It will lighten their load and the money you save on postage will pay for a couple jars of fruit and nuts for the Christmas party.
