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A Short History of Fruitcake
Village Voice ^ | 11-2002 | Robert Sietsema

Posted on 12/17/2002 6:09:59 PM PST by dogbyte12

Blame the fruitcake plague on the cheap sugar that arrived in Europe from the colonies in the 16th century. Some goon discovered that fruit could be preserved by soaking it in successively greater concentrations of sugar, intensifying color and flavor. Not only could native plums and cherries be conserved, but heretofore unavailable fruits were soon being imported in candied form from other parts of the world. Having so much sugar-laced fruit engendered the need to dispose of it in some way—thus the fruitcake. By the early 19th century, the typical recipe was heavy as lead with citrus peel, pineapples, plums, dates, pears, and cherries.

Whether or not anyone actually enjoyed eating it, fruitcake persisted, finding fertile soil in the New World, especially in places where fresh fruit was difficult to come by. Nuts were introduced into the formula, probably because America's foremost fruitcake makers—Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas, and Claxton Bakery of Claxton, Georgia—were located in rural Southern communities with a surplus of cheap nuts; indeed, the Corsicana cake includes pecans. The expression "nutty as a fruitcake" was coined in 1935.

In spite of the size and preeminence of America's fruitcake industry, the product's popularity has drastically declined over the years. Some blame Johnny Carson, who found in the maligned cake a rich source of jokes: "The worst gift is fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other." Others point to an aging demographic that finds grandmothers sending cakes to their grown grandchildren, who privately throw them away, or even do it publicly at events like the annual Great Fruitcake Toss in Manitou Springs, Colorado, where, if you don't own a fruitcake, you can rent one for 25 cents. Further evidence of fruitcake's unpopularity: Ever seen one on a restaurant menu?

If, as the bakeries claim, sales continue to grow, you've got to wonder where all those fruitcakes are going. Anecdotal evidence indicates that a substantial number are sent to Japan, where customers appreciate the dense texture, jaw-aching sweetness, and surfeit of colorful fruit. In anticipation of the Christmas holiday, I decided to revisit the fruitcake, collecting as many as I could lay my hands on. Then I tasted them in the privacy of my home, using the savor-and-spit technique favored by wine critics. Had anyone been watching, it would have made a droll spectacle. Below are notes on the country's most notable cakes.

Claxton Bakery offers two different versions, one light and one dark, each weighing two pounds ($13.95, shipping included). Instead of the traditional ring configuration, these cakes are brick-shaped, making them easy to throw. The paler one is something like a pound cake into which somebody has accidentally spilled candied fruits. The darker, its top annoyingly paved with raisins, has only slightly more flavor.

The Collin Street Bakery's one-and-seven-eighths-pound product assumes the standard hemorrhoid-cushion configuration and is considerably more expensive ($18.75 plus $13 two-day UPS), though the decorative red tin—incongruously featuring a Victorian couple trudging through the snow next to a cowboy twirling a lariat—will be good for storing stuff. While it's clearly of better quality, and with an exterior prettily decorated with pecans, the cake's flavor is similarly blah.

Demonstrating further the decreasing popularity of fruitcake, visits to area stores yielded few specimens. By early November Macy's Cellar had an entire department devoted to Christmas sweets, with only a single fruitcake among them (though cousins like Italian panettone and German stollen were more readily available). Made in Poplarville, Mississippi, Baker Maid fruitcake comes in a handy one-pound size ($12.99), half a cake carved into eight plastic-wrapped slices. This evocation is the darkest and richest, though it suffers from a chemical aftertaste that can probably only be banished by a slug of eggnog.

Confirming the Japanese admiration for fruitcake, the department store Takashimaya offers it year-round. Each gift-wrapped box contains 16 miniature gold ingots of cake (10.77 ounces, $15), and the list of ingredients makes a refreshingly short read, with no numbered dyes, soy lecithin, or mono- and diglycerides. Though this cake depends too much on raisins, the simplicity of the flavor and its slightly bitter edge are both welcome.

Probably out of deference to Bible-thumpers, most of the aforementioned Southern examples are teetotaler cakes. It turns out alcohol-bearing versions are inherently superior, since the booze neutralizes the cloying sweetness. Stunningly, nearly all are made by monks. It's hard to believe that men of God are busily undermining the sobriety of the populace (including children) by pouring the hard stuff over Christmas cakes. The most notorious of these comes from the Trappist monks of the Abbey of Gethsemani near Louisville, Kentucky, who make a fruitcake crumbly and voluptuous (2.5 pounds, $26.50 including shipping), though the ungainly combo of burgundy wine and Kentucky bourbon suggests an explosion at the liquor store. The mystic poet Thomas Merton ended his days at this abbey, and I like to think of him popping a final fruitcake into the oven as he draws his dying breath.

The competing cake produced by monks at the Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia, furnishes a stouter alcoholic belt, and the purple prose of the brochure reveals the happier combination of booze they use: "The Brothers add a generous measure of fine sherry wine. After slow and gentle baking, each cake is laced with traditional brandy and topped with a honey glaze." I'm tempted to add: " . . . while the monks cavort in the nude with fruitcake tins on their tonsured heads." Nevertheless, this fruitcake wins the prize.

As I dabbed lightly at my lips with a napkin, I contemplated the more difficult task ahead: How was I going to get rid of the cakes?


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Political Humor/Cartoons
KEYWORDS: brick; evil; yuck
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To: dogbyte12
A Short History of Fruitcake

Haven't we had enough posts on gayness? What's next, a history of nuts?

21 posted on 12/17/2002 6:55:06 PM PST by Revolting cat!
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To: John Jamieson
Is Corsicana close to Hillsboro?
22 posted on 12/17/2002 6:56:33 PM PST by dixiechick2000
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To: dixiechick2000
Is Corsicana close to Hillsboro?

Head down I-45 from Dallas towards Houston. It's about an hour's drive and there are signs that will direct you to the bakery. Put me down as pro-Collin Street Bakery Fruitcake.

23 posted on 12/17/2002 7:03:29 PM PST by DallasMike
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To: dogbyte12
Oh, you guys are just being elitist anti-fruitcake snobs. I LOVE fruitcake. The thicker, chewier and fruitier and more full of nuts the better.

One of the best "Christmas" movies around is the adaptation of Truman Capote's "Thanksgiving Memory". (I'm pretty sure that is the title of the short story and I think it is the title of the movie.) It is a wonderful story of the young Truman and his crazy-as-a-loon-Auntie (played, I think, by Geraldine Page) who make fruitcakes and send them to different people that have impressed them during the past year.

The trip to HA HA Johnson's to buy the whiskey to make the cakes is priceless!

24 posted on 12/17/2002 7:04:26 PM PST by Free State Four
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To: dixiechick2000
Hillsboro is about 40-50 miles west. Waco the home of Dr. Pepper is south of that, and the Texas White House is a little more west of Waco. Lots of stuff with a few hundred miles. Nice places.
25 posted on 12/17/2002 7:05:47 PM PST by John Jamieson
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To: speedy
Haven't had it in many years, but put me down as pro-fruitcake. Although I would like to know what the green fruit in there is.

The fruit is citron, from: a thorny evergreen shrub or small tree (Citrus medica) native to India and widely cultivated for its large lemonlike fruits that have a thick warty rind; the fruit of this plant is candied and used in confections and fruitcakes.

My mother used to make fruitcakes that were heartily eaten by everyone. They were very moist, spicy, and fruity, and there was nothing better with a hot cup of coffee.

Hank

26 posted on 12/17/2002 7:06:22 PM PST by Hank Kerchief
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To: null and void
Thanks for the ping Nully, but you know I always hated the fruit cake tosses. I am one of those people that happens to love fruitcake...if it is good fruitcake and my grandma made the best I ever ate! My ex-mother in law made a pretty decent one too.
27 posted on 12/17/2002 7:06:25 PM PST by sweetliberty
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To: All
My mother was British. Each year she made fruitcake as gifts for all her children. I tried passing off slices of it to unwary Christmas visitors. They refused it to a man.
I didn't have the heart to hurt my mother's feelings, so each Christmas I put the cake in the back of the refrigerator, and threw out the still edible, well wine and liquored one one from the year before.

YECHHHHHHHHHH!

I STILL feel guilty.

28 posted on 12/17/2002 7:06:37 PM PST by kitkat
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To: dogbyte12
I'm well known in my circle for being a sweets junkie. Sugar, corn syrup, candy, chocolates, if it'll make you fat I'll take two. All that being said fruitcake is one of the most disgusting things on the planet and second only to carolers for annoying holiday traditions, if I were king making fruitcake would be considered high treason.
29 posted on 12/17/2002 7:09:34 PM PST by discostu
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To: Pete from Shawnee Mission
***(Would this have happened had he stayed home and stuck to his Kentucky
40 proof fruitcake? )***

Somehow, I doubt that Merton ever made fruitcakes in the monestary. I mean...I just can't see a Merton poem that says:

Sweet brother, if I cannot sleep
My eyes will be coins to buy some citron
30 posted on 12/17/2002 7:14:12 PM PST by kitkat
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To: dixiechick2000
Oh, and don't miss my sister staring in the Christmas show at the Granbury Opera house.
31 posted on 12/17/2002 7:14:24 PM PST by John Jamieson
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To: kitkat
"His Abbot exempted him from certain rules of the abbey... He was encouraged to continue his writings, for example. He may have made fruitcake. (Back on subject Fruitcake is pretty ok if the proof is high enough and it doesnt have too many nuts ....Plum Pudding with brandy hard sauce is better. Mincemeat pie (on occasional holidays) and homemade carrot cake are good. )

32 posted on 12/17/2002 7:32:12 PM PST by Pete from Shawnee Mission
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To: Hank Kerchief
Thanks for the info, Hank. Now I'm starting to get a yearning for a big thick slice right about now.
33 posted on 12/17/2002 7:35:53 PM PST by speedy
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To: John Jamieson; DallasMike
Thanks to you both. My in-laws live in Hillsboro, and I thought I recognized Corsicana as being close. I think I've been through there, but I don't pay much attention unless I'm driving.;o)

"Oh, and don't miss my sister staring in the Christmas show at the Granbury Opera house."

I wish I could see that, but I live in Oregon. Tell her to "break a leg"!

34 posted on 12/17/2002 7:38:49 PM PST by dixiechick2000
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To: John Jamieson; DallasMike
Oh, and maybe the next time we're in Texas, I can talk all of our folks into going to Corsicana to taste test that fruit cake.

Is it close to the Dinosaur park?

35 posted on 12/17/2002 7:43:22 PM PST by dixiechick2000
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To: dixiechick2000
Pretty close. Dinosaur Valley State Park is near Glen Rose, south of Granbury (which is 20 miles south of Ft. worth), maybe 40 miles west of Corsicana.
36 posted on 12/17/2002 7:58:20 PM PST by John Jamieson
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To: dogbyte12
I don't like cake in my fruitcake. I like the really dense kind with the big square green things in it.

I gotta sweet tooth...can ya tell?

37 posted on 12/17/2002 8:00:09 PM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts
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To: John Jamieson
Thank you! Now I have a pretty good idea where it is.
38 posted on 12/17/2002 8:12:01 PM PST by dixiechick2000
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To: dogbyte12
I dont believe the defence establishment has come up with a bunker buster that can blast through a 1 foot wall of fruit cake yet.
39 posted on 12/17/2002 8:28:01 PM PST by Husker24
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To: dogbyte12
I love fruitcake. Alas, I am not "supposed" to eat it due to diabetes.

Sigh.

40 posted on 12/17/2002 8:32:09 PM PST by boris
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