Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio Hey brain Stuff
Speaker 1: Laurin Vogel bomb Here. Each year in December, the US
Speaker 1: Postal Service delivers tidy, dense packages of certain baked goods
Speaker 1: into mailboxes across America, with a shelf life of up
Speaker 1: to three years and even longer if generously doused with rum.
Speaker 1: It's easy to see why they're so male friendly. But
Speaker 1: what exactly is fruitcake? In the parlance of our times?
Speaker 1: Fruitcake is a sweet, rich, moist type of cake. The
Speaker 1: batter is traditionally made with wheat flour, eggs, butter, dark sugars,
Speaker 1: and warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice. It's
Speaker 1: heavily studded with dried and candied fruits and nuts. Most
Speaker 1: traditionally raisins, citrus, peel, and almonds, but honestly, anything goes
Speaker 1: and candied cherries are common. Modernly, a rich brown liquor
Speaker 1: like brandy, whisky or rum is often incorporated. Either the
Speaker 1: fruits are soaked in it before being stirred in and
Speaker 1: or the finished cake is basted in liquor. For those
Speaker 1: who don't imbibe things like apple juice or vanilla syrup,
Speaker 1: can be substituted here. The overall effect is a little overwhelming,
Speaker 1: lots of heavy flavors and differing textures, but it basically
Speaker 1: tastes like Christmas time. There are a lot of different recipes.
Speaker 1: Some include other flavorings like cocoa powder. Some are coated
Speaker 1: in a glaze and icing, or with marzipan. Fruitcake is
Speaker 1: a tradition that technically goes back to Roman times. It
Speaker 1: became a staple of festivals and today is widely associated
Speaker 1: with winter holidays. There are some ardently against these dense,
Speaker 1: fruit filled loaves. On average, they share a density with mahogany.
Speaker 1: Johnny Carson famously joked back in nineteen eighty five the
Speaker 1: worst Christmas gift is fruitcake. There's only one fruitcake in
Speaker 1: the entire world, and people keep passing it around. In
Speaker 1: one survey, forty seven percent of people who received a
Speaker 1: gift of fruitcake reported throwing it away, eleven percent reported
Speaker 1: regifting it. Some reported using it as a doorstop, but
Speaker 1: there are some who are ardently for the fruitcake. A
Speaker 1: Texas based Collin Street Bakery, which has been providing fruitcakes
Speaker 1: since eighteen ninety six, produces more than one million a year.
Speaker 1: And ships to some two hundred countries. So how did
Speaker 1: we get here? A culinary lore claims that ancient Egyptians
Speaker 1: placed an early version of the fruitcake on the tombs
Speaker 1: of loved ones. Perhaps is food for the afterlife, but
Speaker 1: fruitcakes weren't common until Roman times, when pomegranate seeds, pine nuts,
Speaker 1: and barley mash were mixed together to form a ring
Speaker 1: shaped dessert. A prize for its portability and shelf life,
Speaker 1: Roman soldiers often brought this version of fruitcake with them
Speaker 1: to the battlefields. Later in the Middle Ages, preserved fruit
Speaker 1: spices and honey were added to the mix, and fruitcakes
Speaker 1: gained popularity with crusaders. When colonialism and enslaved labor brought
Speaker 1: down the price of sugar to merely extravagant, sugar was
Speaker 1: incorporated by the cupful. For diners and wealthy households, fruits
Speaker 1: from the Mediterranean were candied and added to the mixture,
Speaker 1: along with nuts. When globalization made spices like nutmeg and
Speaker 1: cinnamon limitedly available and wildly posh, those spices went in too,
Speaker 1: making it even more of a special occasion treat. Various
Speaker 1: versions were banned by European leaders in the sixteen and
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, naming fruitcake inappropriately decadent and therefore lewed. But
Speaker 1: it's always come back, and each successive century has contributed
Speaker 1: yet more elements to the cake, like alcohol during the
Speaker 1: Victorian era, until it became weighty with the cumulative harvests
Speaker 1: of the seasons. It does seem a bit old fashioned today,
Speaker 1: but it hasn't always been the butt of jokes. It
Speaker 1: was so popular through the nineteen sixties that it was
Speaker 1: part of the extremely limited menu sent into space with
Speaker 1: the Apollo eleven moon landing astronauts. Defenders of these sometimes
Speaker 1: leaden loaves claim that those who abhor fruitcake just haven't
Speaker 1: had the right kind. So what is the right kind?
Speaker 1: And does density make it more delicious or more dangerous if, say,
Speaker 1: dropped on your foot. Let's begin by examining some statistics.
Speaker 1: The average fruitcake weighs two pounds and serves six to
Speaker 1: seven people. Its ability to languish on countertops for months
Speaker 1: without a spot of mold developing is due to its
Speaker 1: moisture stabilizing properties, mainly sugar. The sugar in it reduces
Speaker 1: the cake's available water content and therefore reduces microorganism's ability
Speaker 1: to live in or on it. For fruitcake aficionados, the
Speaker 1: quality and type of the fruit can make or break
Speaker 1: the baked good. Although preference of but most agree that
Speaker 1: the fruitcake should be made at least one month in
Speaker 1: advance of its gifting or eating. Some make a fruitcake
Speaker 1: one year in advance. This allows the cake to deepen
Speaker 1: its flavors, particularly since fruit contains tannins that, like wine,
Speaker 1: release over time. It's also common for the baker to
Speaker 1: add another seasoning dimension by feeding the fruitcake that is,
Speaker 1: pouring whiskey, brandy, or rum over the loaf every so often.
Speaker 1: The loaf can and should be heavy, but it must
Speaker 1: be moist and contain a variety of flavors in order
Speaker 1: to be successful. But some detractors from the fruitcake are
Speaker 1: acting in good fun. For example, every January, the town
Speaker 1: of Manachu Springs, Colorado, gathers for their annual Great Fruitcake Toss.
Speaker 1: Aside from being a food drive for a local pantry,
Speaker 1: the event allows people to rid themselves of unwanted fruitcakes
Speaker 1: by hurling, tossing, or launching them with mechanical devices like
Speaker 1: catapults or spud guns. Although if you didn't bring your
Speaker 1: own fruitcake, you can rent one, and some attendees keep
Speaker 1: theirs for reuse year after year. Since nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: individuals and teams have tested their projectile prowess with the
Speaker 1: promise of a trophy in several categories, including throwing distance
Speaker 1: by age group, tossing into baskets, a relay race, accuracy
Speaker 1: when throwing through hoops, and mechanical toss for distance. Judges
Speaker 1: take the event seriously and make contestants adhere to standards
Speaker 1: such as weight divisions two versus four pound fruitcakes, launching distances,
Speaker 1: fruitcake contents they must contain glass, seed, fruits, nuts, flour
Speaker 1: and be edible, and launching devices non fuel devices only,
Speaker 1: thank you. There's also a too good to toss category
Speaker 1: for people who actually enjoy making an eating fruitcake. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, the event is being held on January
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, so if you're listening as this episode comes out,
Speaker 1: there's still time to plan for it. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article Ultimate Guide to Fruitcake on how
Speaker 1: Stuffworks dot Com, written by Julie Douglas and brain Stuff
Speaker 1: is production of iHeartRadio and partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com,
Speaker 1: and is produced by Tyler Klang, but four more podcasts.
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