December 27 is National Fruitcake Day where we sit around and sing the praise of the fruitcake. That takes all of about 10 seconds because it’s the worst dessert ever with the subtle piquant flavor of burnt popcorn and mud. Some of you may like fruitcake and I’m so sorry you were born without taste buds. Perhaps science will find a cure some day and you will finally understand why the rest of us gape at you in horror as you shovel the stuff in without gagging.
As a child, every year we were gifted with a fruitcake from an aged relative. She is to be forgiven since she grew up during the Depression when people were so poor, they only ate discarded clothing. By comparison, fruitcake was a small step up. The only way to make it palatable was to douse it in the strongest alcohol available. It didn’t improve the taste, but after one slice you didn’t care.
Fruitcake has a long, inglorious history. The ancient Romans made a mishmash of barley, pomegranate seeds, nuts, and raisins into a sort of energy bar; It was shaped into a cake and called a “satura.” Because it was easy to tote around and lasted for so long without going bad, Roman soldiers brought it to the battlefields as a snack. It was also used as a weapon against the Visigoths. Unfortunately, they had fruitcake of their own, so the battle was a draw.
During the Middle Ages dried fruits became more widely available and were mixed with bread doughs. To prevent spoilage alcohol was added to kill bacteria and taste buds. The preservative process caused these breads to last through a long cold winter. In Elizabethan times, fruitcakes often contained meat, fruit juices, sugar, preserved fruits and enough wine and sherry to choke a horse. After a while, the meat was eliminated. Why bother when you had that much wine and sherry? More fruit took its place. Cooks began soaking fruits in sugar and drying them. Around this time, nuts were also added and then all of that slop was added to a heavy cake batter. It became known as "plum pudding” or “Blimey, what is this mess?”
In England, fruitcake is traditional at British weddings. It was customary for unmarried wedding guests to put a slice of fruitcake under their pillow at night so they could dream about the person they would eventually marry. (Eating it caused nightmares.) Fruitcake was also served to English Christmas carolers, which may be a reason it became so popular for the holidays. It was banned in the 18th century when it was mistakenly thought to be the cause of a cholera epidemic, although some of us still have doubts.
Variations on the fruitcake sprung up in other countries. Italy's dense panforte dates back to 13th century Sienna; Germany's stollen, a tapered loaf coated with melted butter and powdered sugar has been a Dresden delicacy since the 1400s with its own annual festival. The Caribbean has black cake, a boozy descendant of Britain’s plum pudding where the fruit is soaked in rum for months, or even as long as a year. The tradition of making fruitcakes for special occasions such as weddings and holidays gained in popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a grand indulgence due to the cost of the materials, but how it came to be a Christmas punishment is a mystery.
Getting rid of fruitcake without actually eating it.
While December 27 is National Fruitcake Day, a little more than a week later, on January 7, comes Fruitcake Toss Day. Before the pandemic, one town in Colorado had an ingenious solution to unwanted fruitcake. Manitou Springs held a contest to see who could throw their fruitcakes the farthest and with the greatest accuracy. People built catapults, slingshots, or just hurled the cakes by hand. Lest you mourn food going to waste remember this is fruitcake, banned by the Geneva Convention as a weapon of mass destruction. Also, competitors were required to bring an edible donation to the local food bank. Anything except fruitcake. Let’s hope the tradition continues. That fruitcake won’t toss itself. So get out there tomorrow and hurl your fruitcake across the street to the neighbor’s yard and then run like hell so they don’t spot you and hurl it back.
