Food History: Fruitcake

Fruitcake is THE Christmas baked good. But... why? Fruitcakes are by no means a favorite holiday dish, so how has it ended up at Christmas dinners for the last few centuries?

Hear the story of an ancient loaf of fruitcake that survived a trip to the South Pole, the decadent fruitcake eaten at a royal wedding, and how fruitcake has endured for so many years.

Food History is a series from Mental Floss where we dive deep into the culinary stories that lead to the food on our plates. If you have an idea for a dish, cooking technique, or cuisine that you’d like us to explore in a future episode, tell us in the comments.

[garysmith]

Fruit cake made from scratch with quality dried fruit and preserved with decent booze is a beautiful thing.

[balesjo]

I love, love, love fruitcake. Until I was in my 40s I generally had what was available in the grocery store. But one weekend I was traveling from Dallas to visit my parents in Arkansas. There was a bakery on the frontage road of I30 which advertised their fruitcakes. I decided to stop and glad I did. Their fruitcakes were absolutely amazing. All were fruit and nut dense with only a small amount of batter to hold the fruits and nuts together. They had at least 20 different types of fruitcakes (traditional dark, white. and many that were named for their primary fruits, such as pineapple, apricot, etc. I loved stopping and buying fruitcakes when I was through there. Sadly, they went out of business in the 2008 great recession. At least I learned some tips for baking (and buying) fruitcakes.

[joewilson]

Everyone dumps on Guy Fieri, but he has created several shows that not only celebrate not famous, everyday people but have a decidedly more positive and light hearted spin on competition and cooking than the other shows on the same network when he started.

[tessat]

I had a work friend from Jamaica. He'd bring home the bottle of Jamaican rum and would give it to me. I would soak my dried fruit in in and in a bottle of Passover wine. Then I would make a West Indian Black cake, a rich, spicy fruit cake and give him one and keep the rest for myself. He loved it because he got the cake but didn't have to go to all the trouble to make it. When I go walking dogs all day in the winter, I take fruit cake as a snack to keep up my energy in the cold.

[Chris.Cook.]

Sorry to be off-topic, but that board game shelf is filled with some top-tier entertainment! Board game history when?

[edkeaton]

"The worst gift is fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the world and people keep sending it to each other." - Johnny Carson.

[Bjenga]

my great grandma used to bake fruitcakes for all her grandsons (who were off abroad in the armed services), and one for her husband which had A LOT of alcohol in it. She once accidentally sent THAT one to my dad in Germany... It smelled so strongly that he got called down to the post room so they could find out what the hell he'd been sent!

[AveryMilieu]

Fruit cake does not deserve the bad rep. Properly made and lightly aged (make them at the end of the summer and drench them with brandy before sealing) they can be delightful. But made with plastic dyed glucose candied fruits and white flour? Forget it.Those are doorstops.
Take equal quantities of dried fruits (these from the health food store, not the supermarket) and (excepting the currents) cut them into smaller bits. Add coarsely chopped nuts to taste (please no peanuts!) and mix this with about half the volume of GROUND ALMONDS or ALMOND FLOUR, add enough honey or maple syrup to moisten the mass and pack into a loaf pan or a bundt mold which is very well buttered. Bake at about 250 F until it starts to pull from the sides of the pan. This is going to take a while.
Some folks will use parchment paper to line the pans.
Once cooled, it can be iced with plain butter creame frosting (no vanilla, lemon if you must) or hard sauce.
OR drenched with brandy and wrapped and stored for a few months.
At the Victorian Weddings, this was the GROOM's Cake. Stronger and more manly, I suppose, than the sugary white confection which the Bride's Cake has become.

[beardedroofer]

I was told when I was young that there was only one fruitcake that was ever made. Of course, no one actually eats it, it is a fruitcake after all, so they just regift it to a new family every year. Ahhh, traditions. Merry Christmas!

[kcthesledgestoryteller]

I can believe that homemade fruitcake is good. I’ll admit it baffles me that every ingredient that goes into it of itself (except rum-I don’t drink), I gleefully ingest,

[edkeaton]

DID YOU KNOW?: Some superstitions state that if you're unmarried, putting a slice of fruitcake under your pillow will help you dream about who you're supposed to marry!

[funnybunny]

I guess this is where 🇯🇲 Jamaica got its inspiration for its black cake.

[SuryaBudimansyah]

Food History: Gingerbread House next ?

[tyrant-den]

OBJECTION! When plum pudding became a thing, "plum" meant: things we now call raisins.
"Sugarplums" were like big raisin filled m&ms.

[katherinelynch]

I had no idea fruitcake was a real thing until recently. All my life, it's been my dad's go-to "fake swear" when he's mad at me but not mad enough to get too harsh, i.e. "You are such a fruitcake!" "don't be a fruitcake"

[kenneybis]

Little known fact, there has ever only been a dozen fruitcakes made. Two were eaten by Scott before he died and the I remaining 10 have been passed around and re-gifted since 1912. Some say a carelessly discarded fruitcake was responsible for the titanic sinking, the fruitcake survived...

[vmatas]

I would like to know what did Europeans eat before the invasion of the American Continent...
Like what was the real traditional food/snacks/etc before corn, potatoes, tomatoes...

[OscarLeeMX]

Fruit cake is the best part of Christmas.

[ambersutton]

I bake stollen every year and it's fantastic.

[marybrown]

I happen to like fruitcake and look forward to when its available in the stores.