Electronic Highways
Fa la la la fruitcake
Of all holiday traditions, fruitcake seems to have the worst reputation. Former “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson famously joked that there was but one fruitcake in the world and that same cake was re-gifted year after year. Our love-hate relationship with fruitcake is readily apparent during the holiday season. Check out the fruitcake-related merchandise at CafePress: T-shirts feature taglines like, “I poisoned the fruitcake (but nobody noticed the difference),” or witty graphics like this depiction of a piece of fruitcake visiting a psychoanalyst.
A rich cake made with lots of sugar, butter and eggs, as well as dried or candied fruit and nuts—and often cured with brandy or a liqueur—fruitcake is a dense, long-lasting dessert. Sugar and alcohol help preserve the cake by inhibiting mold growth, but they also make fruitcake cloyingly sweet. It’s that sweetness and the pieces of neon green candied cherry that most often are cited as the reason for fruitcake’s inedibility.
Fruitcake does, however, have some rabid fans, like the people responsible for The Society for the Protection and Preservation of Fruitcake, a compilation of recipes and outside links, and Fruitcake Rescue, a site that offers to find new homes for unloved fruitcakes and provides helpful tips on fruitcake care.
Fruitcake has a long history as a holiday treat. Food Timeline’s Christmas food page is very informative, especially its discussion of the enigmatic Japanese fruitcake. More information about fruitcake and other Christmas traditions is available through the University Libraries. Two of the best resources are In the First Person, a database of personal accounts (full-text oral histories, diaries and correspondence), and Readers Guide Retrospective, 1890-1982, which brings together many periodicals to give a full picture of American history and culture.
In recent years, fruitcake, whether loved or reviled, has become a reason to celebrate. Dec. 27 has been dubbed Fruitcake Day. Unsure what to do for Fruitcake Day? Check out the tips at eHow. The town of Manitou Springs, Colo. hosts the annual Great Fruitcake Toss on the first Saturday of January. And, this year, Monroeville, Ala., is holding its second fruitcake festival in celebration of Truman Capote and his “A Christmas Memory.” Even Buffalo got in on the action when it joined forces with the International Federation of Competitive Eating to host a fruitcake-eating contest in 2003. The winner of that contest ate just under 15 pounds of Wegmans fruitcake in 10 minutes.
Fancy some fruitcake? In 2002, Robert Sietsema, a journalist for the Village Voice, decided to collect widely available fruitcakes and sample them like a wine-taster. While his favorite was the cake produced by the Trappist monks of the Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Va. (which also sells chocolate-covered slices), most fruitcake lovers seem to agree that homemade fruitcake is the best.
If you’d like to try your hand at baking a fruitcake this year, check out the Epicurious recipe database or RecipeZaar. Both sites allow users to rate—and review—recipes so you can see what has worked for others before you embark on your own baking spree. Start out small, though, or your friends and family might think you’re as nutty as a fruitcake!
—Karen Walton Morse, University Libraries
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