Posted on 12/03/2008 10:11:41 AM PST by NYer
They're delaying their purchase of a new car. They're thinking twice before dining out. But you know the economy is tough when consumers are even reducing their purchases of that Christmas staple: the fruitcake.
Monasteries and abbeys across the United States -- where fruitcake baking is the traditional work of Trappist monks -- are reporting a modest dip in sales. In some cases, the number of orders are about the same, but their dollar amounts have been trimmed.
"We're right along with everybody else," said the Rev. Richard Layton, business manager of Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey in Lafayette, Ore. "Economic decline isn't just happening in our monastery. Everybody's feeling the pinch."
His Trappist monastery, where monks age 31 to 93 spend part of their days in prayer and part working onsite, has felt the economic woes in some of its industries, particularly its forestry business. With people not buying houses, wood sales are down; and their book bindery is suffering, too. But continued interest in their wine warehouse and bakery is helping pick up the slack, Layton said.
Some of the monastery's retail customers -- such as one that ordered $50,000 worth of fruitcake -- find sales are going just fine. But other smaller retailers have cut orders in half.
At Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Va., bakery manager Ernie Polanskas said orders of Christmas fruitcakes as well as sales of creamed honey and chocolate truffles seem to be on par with last year.
"We have heard from some (customers), because of the economy they've cut back as far as orders," he said of the abbey where the bakery is the primary means of financial support for its 23 monks. "Basically we'll get through this and, God's will, whatever happens we'll make the best of it."
Brother Paul Richards, one of the bakery managers at Abbey of the Genesee in Piffard, N.Y., said call-in orders for their fruitcakes and whiskey cakes are similar to last year, but online sales at their Web site have doubled since last year.
"We're just bracing ourselves for Christmas," he said of the monks, who spend three-hour shifts in a bakery that produces white and whole wheat bread in addition to cakes and brownies. "We're a monastery first and then a bakery. Sometimes the bakery can start taking over and we have to try to keep a balance here. After Christmas, we kind of recoup."
With a new marketing campaign, the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Ga., had expected to far exceed sales from previous years, but the 42 monks there were content with orders for Christmas being up 8 percent by late November.
"The positive is we're not seeing the reduction that many others are, but we are not seeing the gain that we were hoping for," said Jim Burnham, business manager at the monastery. "What I'm more concerned with isn't the number of orders," he said. "But the dollars per order are down a little bit. I think people are being a little bit more cautious."
But Burnham said the monks are more worried about the economy's effect beyond their monastery east of Atlanta.
"I think they're less concerned for themselves and the impact of their program than they are for just the overall impact, ... what it's going to mean for the average guy on the street," he said.
While some monasteries are finding the bakery business is so far, so good, this year, they wonder what will happen next Christmas.
"We're doing fairly well this year," said Michael Hampton, shipping manager at Assumption Abbey in Ava, Mo. "We don't know how we'll do next year."
The current support reflects some people sticking with their tradition of ordering the two-pound fruitcake from the remote abbey in the Ozarks, and cutting back elsewhere, he said.
"I've heard a few comments like that, how people made some cuts here and there but they weren't going to go without their fruitcake," he said.
Cherries aren’t supposed to be “green”............
It was so bad they couldn't get a scope past it (they thought it was colon cancer) rushed me to the hospital and the next morning I was in an operating room opened up from above my belly button to my groin!
Not a trace of cancer but they removed scar tissue as big as my fist. I am just now recovering to the point I can do work around the yard. Still no heavy lifting.
Green cherries.
These are not 'green' as in unripe, just regular red cherries dyed green.
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This thread reminds me that I have a wonderful Danish fruitcake recipe my Mom gave me....haven't made it in years.
:-)
Yes...but they are just rentals and sent back to their respective monasteries after Christmas.
There they are cleaned, dusted [and in rare cases, patched if a piece should happen to be missing] and boxed for next year....
I bet you didn’t think this thread would be so fun!!
LOL!
Here is one that is the best.....
http://www.collinstreet.com/pages/deluxe_fruitcake
Deluxe Fruitcake!! Can’t wait.
I think the fruitcake jokes were just the start of the whole "anti-Christmas PC thing" that's been permeating our society for the past couple of decades.
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Well, you know, with fruitcake you either love it or hate I guess.
LOL.
I'm with you there.
Give me a nice Irish Coffee and I am set for the evening.
ping
English sherry sponge cake ... yum ... with real(!) whipped cream on top!!!
Beginning on Thanksgiving, a fruitcake (the same one every year) is left on the steps,of a neighbor. The rest of the Christmas season, the fruitcake makes the rounds of the community going from home to home. When you give the cake away you also sign a Christmas card and add a Christmas message for all to read.
The day after Thanksgiving when I went out to get the mail, there it was in all its fruity glory.
Whoever has the fruitcake at 12 midnight on Christmas Eve has to store it away in their freezer until next Thaanksgiving.
Last year my sister had it and a large plastic Santa and Snowman on her porch.
Yes, the Santa and Snowman also make the rounds during Christmas too.
I love fruitcake too. However, I wish it had much less sugar because I am diabetic.
“It killed me when fruitcake started to become a joke to some people. It damaged the economy in Claxton GA and made Claxton fruitcakes hard to find.”
Maybe they were used in the annual fruitcake toss. lol
Me too -- that is why I can only have one thin slice. Same for pumpkin pie: one thin slice for the whole holiday season.
If they are square or rectangular, they are citron, which is a fruit. We prefer the fruitcake from the Collin Street Bakery, two large ones will be gone by the middle of January. It’s a tradition this Texas family has kept for over 100 years. I’m drooling just thinking about a slice with a cup of tea.
I was going to post the link, and then read further to see yours. We love Collin Street fruitcake, will continue to buy it, and I get all teary-eyed thinking how my grandparents would send a can to us no matter where we were living overseas, every year, never missed one. Even sent them to Vietnam when my daddy was there. It meant home, and family and love. Just opening the box and seeing that tin cover makes me a little kid all over again. I’ll cut a slice and and it will be like my elders are all alive again, and I’ll see my daddy’s smile as he gets his first taste of fruitcake for the season. Drats, who would have known I’d have to type through tears on a fruitcake thread.
‘What are those green things in the fruit cake?? ‘
The green square bits are a local fruit called a citron.
I think it is really an unripe Waltermelon, but, all the same it’s basically the rine of the fruit.
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