The LuLac Edition #5, 510, November 29th, 2025
FOOD-
TASTIC NEWS
HOLIDAY FRUIT CAKES FOR CHRISTMAS
HOW IT STARTED
The earliest recipe from ancient Rome lists pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins that were mixed into barley mash. In the Middle Ages, honey, spices, and preserved fruits were added.
Fruitcakes soon proliferated all over Europe. Recipes varied greatly in different countries throughout the ages, depending on the available ingredients, as well as (in some instances) church regulations forbidding the use of butter, regarding the observance of Fasting. Pope Innocent VIII (1432–1492) finally granted the use of butter, in a written permission known as the ‘Butter Letter' or Butterbrief in 1490, giving permission to Saxony to use milk and butter in the Stollen fruitcakes.
Starting in the 16th century, sugar from the American Colonies (and the discovery that high concentrations of sugar could preserve fruits) created an excess of candied fruit, thus making fruitcakes more affordable and popular. The 17th-century English fruitcake was originally yeast-leavened, with the rum and dried fruit helping to extend the shelf life of the cake.
OUR CAKES, LIKE ITS PEOPLE ARE FULL OF NUTS
Typical American fruitcakes are rich in fruit and nuts.
Mail-order fruitcakes in America began in 1913. Some well-known American bakers of fruitcake include Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas, and The Claxton Bakery in Claxton, Georgia. Both Collin Street and Claxton are Southern companies with inexpensive access to large quantities of nuts, for which the expression "nutty as a fruitcake" was derived in 1935. Commercial fruitcakes are often sold from catalogues by charities as a fund raiser.
Fruitcakes are also made and sold by Christian monasteries, as a means of supporting the monks and nuns who reside there. Some well-known American monasteries which offer fruitcake include Abbey of Gethsemani, in Trappist, Kentucky; Assumption Abbey in Ava, Missouri; Monastery of the Holy Spirit, in Conyers, Georgia; and Trappist Abbey in Carlton, Oregon. The fruitcake produced by the Trappists of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky earned the "best overall fruitcake" accolade from The Wall Street Journal. During an interview on Russell Howard's Good News, astronaut Chris Hadfield recounted that a fruitcake made by "Trappist monks in the Ozarks" was found and served aboard the International Space Station during Hadfield's tenure as commander.
Most American mass-produced fruitcakes are alcohol-free, but those made according to traditional recipes are saturated with liqueurs or brandy and covered in powdered sugar, both of which prevent mould. Brandy (or wine) soaked linens can be used to store the fruitcakes, and some people feel that fruitcakes improve with age.[citation needed]
In the United States, fruitcake has become a ridiculed dessert, in part due to inexpensive mass-produced cakes of questionable age. Some attribute the beginning of this trend to The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson. He would joke that there is really only one fruitcake in the world, passed from family to family. After Carson's death, the tradition continued with "The Fruitcake Lady" (Marie Rudisill), who made appearances on the show and offered her "fruitcake" opinions. In fact, the fruitcake had been a butt of jokes on television programs such as Father Knows Best and The Donna Reed Show years before The Tonight Show debuted. It appears to have first become a vilified confection in the early 20th century, as evidenced by Warner Brothers cartoons. It has also been used as a derogatory term for people who are considered weak, strange, or insane.
IN CANADA
It is called gâteau aux fruits in Quebec and New-Brunswick.
Shelf life
posted by David Yonki @ 8:45 AM
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