Fruitcakes to fly again this weekend in Manitou Springs
Editor’s note: This is a reprint of a column that was published in 2018.
Google “fruitcake ingredients,” and up pops deliciousness.
Dried cranberries and currants, candied green cherries, pecans, walnuts, dark rum, butter, brown sugar. Ingredients that are individually scrumptious, but smashed together create a magical loaf of dense, rich, chewy heaven. Slather a thick slice with butter, pair it with a cup of steamy English Breakfast tea and you’ve given me a reason to wake up.
I am alone in this love. It’s me and fruitcake against the world.
Mention the much-maligned baked good to a roomful of people and sit back as the scornful remarks fly. In the case of Saturday’s Great Fruitcake Toss in Manitou Springs, the baked good will fly across Memorial Park as competitors fling or slingshot loaves for prizes.
I don’t get the vehement sentiment. Is it simply herd mentality? Or was there some vomit-worthy experience endured by the naysayer somewhere along the line? Perhaps other fruitcake lovers exist in secret, afraid to buck the hive mind. Stand with me, fellow fruities!
How is fruitcake different from cranberry walnut bread? Or banana nut bread? Neither of these goodies gets roasted when it shows up to the party. When did this compact sweet bread get such a bad rap?
And let’s not even start on the long usage of the word to denote a mentally deficient person. I seem to recall my father used the word to describe me and my brother more than once. Yet he was a lover, or at least a liker, of the cake, which made it all the more confusing.
Fruitcakes hail from Roman times, when ring-shaped desserts were crafted from pomegranate seeds, pine nuts and barley mash, and then carried into battle. No, not as weapons, smart guy, but as portable and long-lasting sustenance. The Middle Ages saw a change in the recipe, with the added ingredients of preserved fruit, spices and honey. Come the 18th and 19th centuries, the sturdy bread was considered an extravagance and started to regularly pop up at weddings and holiday celebrations.
But nobody seems to know why the current incarnation is only trotted out at Christmas or, as pointed out in a 2010 story on the website Smithsonianmag.com, “the point at which the fruitcake fell from grace.”
Maybe folks got an early childhood taste of a relative’s poorly executed recipe and dismissed it for life. Maybe it got buried in all the holiday leftovers and turned dry and rancid by the time it was uncovered.
These are easily corrected strikeouts, my carb-loving friends. Let’s vow to give the cake a second chance. See you Saturday in Manitou. I’ll be the one on the other side of the park, valiantly trying to catch all those loathed loaves.
Contact the writer: 636-0270
What: The Great Fruitcake Toss
When: 1-3 p.m. Saturday
Where: Memorial Park, 502 Manitou Ave., Manitou Springs
Price: $1 per game, $5 rental fruitcake; canned food donation earns one ticket, 10 tickets per family max; 719-685-5089, manitousprings.org/events/fruitcake-toss
Barney Katzerman throws a fruitcake through a hoop at the 28th Annual Great Fruitcake Toss in Manitou Springs on Saturday.
Stale jokes aside, the fruitcake has a long history that even predates Christmas itself. (Dreamstime/TNS)
Fruitcakes for tossing (Gazette file photo)
Emily Beck throws a fruitcake during the 28th annual Great Fruitcake Toss last year in Manitou Springs.