# Do you eat fruitcake?



## Wayne

Saw a similar poll over on the Sawmill Creek forum:

Much maligned by comics, fruitcake is a seasonal staple.

Do you eat it, regift it, throw it out?

[to protect the innocent, no votes in this poll will be made public]

And I will say that the fruitcake that my sister-in-law sent, from Neiman Marcus, was great. Maybe the best I've ever had.


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## Ivan

There are a few fruitcakes, although I haven't had any for years, that are simply delicious.


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## BJClark

Well, even though this isn't a public poll, my answer will be made known...I can't say as I've EVER HAD fruit cake.

I've not received it as a gift, I've not bought it..I've not had it at parties..didn't have it as a child..so I can't say if I like it or not...in 40+ years..I've never had fruit cake...


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## Idelette

There is only one type of fruit cake that I like; Italian Panettone cakes. Other than that, I don't really like typical fruit cakes at all. 

Panettone


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## baron

My father used to send me a fruitcake every year and I enjoyed them. Have not had fruitcake in years since my father died. Too cheap to buy one.


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## Herald

I was doing some brick work a few years back and ran out of bricks. A Claxton fruitcake did the job. 

Youse guys believe me, right?


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## Wayne

Yep, Bill. We believe you.

Yvonne: I hadn't thought of Panettone as a fruit cake, but you're right. Trader Joe's dropped their price this on them by $1. We like to use them to make a great bread pudding. Our fondest for them was tempered by someone at work wondering aloud how it is that the bread stays soft for so long and mold doesn't set in.


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## Athaleyah

I like certain fruitcakes that people I know have made, but I almost invariably hate the packaged ones.

The one Panettone I had was too dry... I don't know if they are all like that, but I've never tried one after I had the first one. My husband was looking at them at World Market a few weeks back but I wasn't interested. He's never had one and thought they looked neat.


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## Southern Presbyterian

Herald said:


> I was doing some brick work a few years back and ran out of bricks. A Claxton fruitcake did the job.
> 
> Youse guys believe me, right?



Back when I worked for CVS Pharmacy, we were removing the fixtures from an old store that had relocated to a new building. We found a Claxton fruitcake that had to be at least 10 years old. We opened it and it still appeared to be "fresh" -- that is, it was still soft enough to be cut with a pocket knife. However, no one was brave enough to give it a taste. 

I haven't had a store bought fruitcake since.


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## Oecolampadius

I love fruitcake and I feel hurt whenever people malign that pastry.


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## AThornquist

If I was stranded on an island with a fruitcake, I would definitely consider eating him.


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## Ruby

I am fascinated that some of you have not even tasted fruitcake. Over here it is very popular and traditionally is used, iced with mazipan, for wedding cakes. I had a friend living in US who found it difficult to buy the mixed fruit for our recipes. They can be expensive to make and it is the rum which preserves them for such a long time!


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## Rich Koster

I equate getting a fruitcake with someone putting their quarterly property tax bill in a card and considering it a gift.


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## LawrenceU

There are some fruitcakes that are delicious. Others that really should be embedded in mortar. There seems to be little middle ground. My father has struck up a continuing correspondence with a former POTUS thanks to a fruitcake recipe. It is really quite a humourous story.


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## Herald

Southern Presbyterian said:


> Herald said:
> 
> 
> 
> I was doing some brick work a few years back and ran out of bricks. A Claxton fruitcake did the job.
> 
> Youse guys believe me, right?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Back when I worked for CVS Pharmacy, we were removing the fixtures from an old store that had relocated to a new building. We found a Claxton fruitcake that had to be at least 10 years old. We opened it and it still appeared to be "fresh" -- that is, it was still soft enough to be cut with a pocket knife. However, no one was brave enough to give it a taste.
> 
> I haven't had a store bought fruitcake since.
Click to expand...




I was forced by my mother to eat a piece of my aunt's fruitcake. It had these little green things in it that reminded me of boogers. I gagged and made such a fuss that my mother finally told me I didn't have to eat any more. 

Another fruitcake story. My aunt used to package her fruitcakes and give them as holiday gifts. My grandmother always received it graciously. She would take it home and break it down to crumbs into a big bowl. She would stand on her back porch and feed it to the birds! For some reason she never swore me to secrecy with her sister (my Aunt), but it wasn't necessary. I was only a kid, but somehow I knew it was not something to be talked about.


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## jwithnell

The guy that started Claxton Fruitcake was Italian, so the Panettone is likely the inspiration. Way back, people going down old US 301 to go to Florida started buying the fruitcakes in Claxton, GA and taking them home.

I like the _idea_ of fruitcake, but not the citron, a major flavor, and the other candied fruits. I've had it made with fresh fruits, and that's pretty tasty.


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## Reformed Thomist

Fruitcake is awesome.


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## Galatians220

I didn't try a fruitcake until I was about 40. Found out then that some of them are absolutely delicious. Now, though, due to allergies, the only ones I can eat are those without artificial colors (the Blues, the Reds, the Yellows). And those constitute about 0.00001% of all fruitcakes.

Margaret


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## au5t1n

I don't think I've tasted fruitcake either. But it's only been 19 years for me...


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## turmeric

You can use fresh orange peel instead of citron, the white pith on the inside of the peel. I stopped making them b/c of the expense. I believe soaking them in rum or brandy for a few weeks is best. Also, dried fruit, such as figs or apricots and lots of nuts can make them delicious. I could have bought one for $12 the other day but that's a lot od dough right now (could be a pun there) and I'm also trying to diet. I only wanted one piece!


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## Presbyterian Deacon

I do not eat fruitcakes, although I have met a few.

O wait, those people were another *kind* of "fruit cake."


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## Peairtach

I don't like the rich fruitcake associated with weddings and Christmas, at least in Great Britain. It also has marzipan, which I like, and thick white icing, which I don't like.

You need a cup of tea or something else to wash it down anyway. It's too rich.


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## a mere housewife

AThornquist said:


> If I was stranded on an island with a fruitcake, I would definitely consider eating him.



If I was stranded on an island with a fruitcake, I would consider using it as a raft. (Some kinds of fruitcake float -- I googled it. In fact it appears that there is a rumor that the Titanic actually struck not an iceberg but a floating fruitcake.)


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## Galatians220

a mere housewife said:


> AThornquist said:
> 
> 
> 
> If I was stranded on an island with a fruitcake, I would definitely consider eating him.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If I was stranded on an island with a fruitcake, I would consider using it as a raft. (Some kinds of fruitcake float -- I googled it. In fact it appears that there is a rumor that the Titanic actually struck not an iceberg but a floating fruitcake.)
Click to expand...

 


Margaret


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## Berean

a mere housewife said:


> If I was stranded on an island with a fruitcake, I would consider using it as a raft. (Some kinds of fruitcake float -- I googled it. In fact it appears that there is a rumor that the Titanic actually struck not an iceberg but a floating fruitcake.)



You know a lot about fruitcakes, Heidi.


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## Scott1

Not one of the poll options.

But finally, a suitable use for fruitcake, finally, has been discovered:

[video=youtube;bbOovr3Gm04]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbOovr3Gm04[/video]


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## toddpedlar

Given that "you are what you eat", I'm not about to partake of a fruitcake...


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## a mere housewife

Berean said:


> a mere housewife said:
> 
> 
> 
> If I was stranded on an island with a fruitcake, I would consider using it as a raft. (Some kinds of fruitcake float -- I googled it. In fact it appears that there is a rumor that the Titanic actually struck not an iceberg but a floating fruitcake.)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You know a lot about fruitcakes, Heidi.
Click to expand...


Thank you.


Other times a fruitcake *may* have been involved in history:

It may have been a regifted fruitcake on which Hannibal crossed the Alps.

(I'm drawing a blank as far as the whole rest of history at present, so that's the only example I can come up with.)


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## Berean




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## Rich Koster

Berean said:


>



Even a dumpster diving, rat brain eating, 9 lived kitty can't handle fruit cake !!!


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## Wayne

Heidi:

You forgot about the Egyptians. The Egyptians built fruitcakes that haven't budged a millimeter in over 4,000 years.


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## a mere housewife

Wayne said:


> Heidi:
> 
> You forgot about the Egyptians. The Egyptians built fruitcakes that haven't budged a millimeter in over 4,000 years.



Ah, of course. One of the major achievements of the human race. They buried their dead in them.


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## Rich Koster

a mere housewife said:


> Wayne said:
> 
> 
> 
> Heidi:
> 
> You forgot about the Egyptians. The Egyptians built fruitcakes that haven't budged a millimeter in over 4,000 years.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ah, of course. One of the major achievements of the human race. They buried their dead in them.
Click to expand...


Putting the dead in fruitcakes.......too soylent green for me


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## a mere housewife

The fruitcake in literature:

_Moby Dick_ was originally written about one man's obsession with harpooning a fruitcake. The publishers didn't think it would fly and requested a rewrite.


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## Wayne

Rich Koster said:


> Putting the dead in fruitcakes.......too soylent green for me



And with that, you've uncovered both the mystery and the reason.

What are those green things in the fruitcake?

and

Why don't people like fruitcake?

FRUITCAKE IS PEOPLE!!!!!!


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## Southern Presbyterian

Wayne said:


> Rich Koster said:
> 
> 
> 
> Putting the dead in fruitcakes.......too soylent green for me
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And with that, you've uncovered both the mystery and the reason.
> 
> What are those green things in the fruitcake?
> 
> and
> 
> Why don't people like fruitcake?
> 
> FRUITCAKE IS PEOPLE!!!!!!
Click to expand...


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## LawrenceU

A little known fact is that Thor Heyerdahl once built a raft of fruitcakes to prove his hypothesis that Eskimos are really Tongans whose raft was eaten by krill whilst they were attempting to traverse the fabled polar passage during a warming spell in the ancient past. This attempt at repeating history was his one and only failure. He forgot that during the cold period of weather patterns that existed in the 1970's there would be even less food for the arctic krill and thus his journey ended tragically. He was rescued by a Soviet 'trawler' and accused of espionage. He was released when the Kremlin heard the skipper's report. They found it unbelievable that the Kon-Fruiti would be vulnerable to such a fate. (After all nothing eats store bought fruit cake.) This incident caused marine biologists everywhere to be increasingly concerned that there may now be a mutant strain of krill that has spawned from the survivours of that generation. It seems to be that the krill now release much more carbon dioxide than did their predecessors. . . .


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## nate895

I've never tried any, but that is because the only ones I have run across have nuts (don't know if that's a fruitcake rule or not), so if I ate them my respiratory system would not be happy with me and quit on the job. I don't understand if they were so bad why people would keep making them. Are they really that bad or is it just something that people make fun of?


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## Wayne

I hate it when a respiratory system quits on the job. I tell you, I've had it up to here with these unions!!

The worst are those fruitcake unions.


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## Mushroom

> I don't understand if they were so bad why people would keep making them.


One of the great mysteries of the age. Kinda like why do people actually eat liver or brussell sprouts? Must be where the term 'glutton for punishment' cam from.


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## Scottish Lass

Allergic to citrus, so never had one.


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## Galatians220

nate895 said:


> I've never tried any, but that is because the only ones I have run across have nuts (don't know if that's a fruitcake rule or not), so if I ate them my respiratory system would not be happy with me and quit on the job. I don't understand if they were so bad why people would keep making them. Are they really that bad or is it just something that people make fun of?


 
*Really bad* fruitcakes are bad beyond description. They are irredeemable and they must be buried like the nuclear waste they so capably resemble before they can hurt or even kill an innocent person. The person who makes an RBF and then attempts to convey it as a gift should be made to answer criminal charges in the appropriate jurisdiction. 

On the other hand, if you've never had an indescribably delicious concoction of cinnamon, flour, nutmeg, dried fruit, marzipan, nuts (or no nuts, in your case), rum and maybe a mild glaze, baked just perfectly, that a really good fruitcake is, you're missing something. The fact that you can't get them except around Christmastime also speaks to their popularity with some people.

That said, I do believe it's plausible that RBFs were involved in the sinking of the Titanic, as Heidi suggests above. It was, after all, April when the ship hit *something.* Probably enough people in Scotland and Ireland had thrown RBFs into the sea after Christmas, 1911, and hundreds of them glommed together out there, their sickening icing making them *look* like an iceberg...

Margaret


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## Skyler

I will eat anything set before me--given that it's intended to be eaten, of course. I suppose, with fruitcake, that's debatable.

Sheep stomach soup isn't too bad, actually.


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## Wayne

Margaret is quite correct, and you may also want to remember Heidi's previous posts about lobbing fruitcakes into foxholes.

Margaret used the military technical term, "RBF", and some of you may need explanation. In typical acronym-speak, this is the military abbreviation for *Roadside Bomb, Fruitcake*, aka, _Really Bad Fruitcake_.

In one recent conflict, there was strong evidence that an outside nation was supplying revelers with especially wreathal Shaped Charge Fruitcakes (SCF).


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## a mere housewife

Wayne said:


> . . . you may also want to remember Heidi's previous posts about lobbing fruitcakes into foxholes.



That must have been during the part where I was drawing a blank about the whole rest of human history.

Another little known fact about fruitcake in literature is that the immortal words 'Et tu, Brute?' were *first* written into Shakespeare's play over Brutus giving Julius Caesar a fruitcake for Christmas. But he got out of bed that night with cold feet and a guttering candle to cross that part out because it suddenly occurred to him as he was lying there that Caesar might have been in the Scottish Reformed tradition and not have celebrated Christmas.


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## Wayne

a mere housewife said:


> Wayne said:
> 
> 
> 
> . . . you may also want to remember Heidi's previous posts about lobbing fruitcakes into foxholes.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That must have been during the part where I was drawing a blank about the whole rest of human history.
Click to expand...


It was. But we were taking notes. And filling in the blanks.


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## Southern Presbyterian

"A fruitcake is a geological homemade cake." --Charles Dickens


"I never met a fruitcake I liked." --The Dorfman Archives


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## Rich Koster

"Send them there fruitcakes back to wheres they came from" -- Archie Bunker


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## Southern Presbyterian

"A former Walmart employee and part-time nutty professor has begun research into alternative uses for the millions of fruitcakes that are returned every December 26th to Walmart."

"...'heck, that stuff has been around longer than dirt; they'll keep making it and people will keep buying it, re-gifting it, and then throwing it away. It's a holiday tradition.'"

Read more here...


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## Hawaiian Puritan

I like fruitcake and my wife likes to make it at Christmas time.

On Christmas Eve she took some of her fruitcake into work to share with others.

However, one of her co-workers turned her down and said, "You've heard the psychiatrist joke about fruitcake, haven't you? There once was a fruitcake that went to a psychiatrist and said, 'Doc, why doesn't anyone like me?'"


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## AThornquist

Skyler said:


> I will eat anything set before me--given that it's intended to be eaten, of course. I suppose, with fruitcake, that's debatable.
> 
> Sheep stomach soup isn't too bad, actually.


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