[Sca-cooks] One of the original fruitcakes has beenadmitted to ; -)

[Michael Gunter]

>I'm curious as to why, and at what point, people stopped liking fruitcake, 
>as a rule. I'd hate to think it was the availability of cheap sugar sources 
>that spelled the beginning of the end for dried fruit in baking. I'd also 
>hate to think it was a public distaste for things like funky-colored glace 
>cherries and mysterious citron peel, because those things belong no more in 
>a proper fruitcake (at least not in bulk) than holes belong in a hamburger 
>made outside of White Castle, and people persist in rampant 
>hamburger-eating in spite of White Castle's existence. Why is fruitcake 
>examined under the microscope of its worst possible incarnation, with that 
>incarnation assumed to be the norm?

I dislike fruitcake for the very reason you mention. I hate the candied
fruits. In my mind, cake should be smooth and maybe accentuated with
the crunch of nuts. But those nasty, gummy fruit things and raisins just
ruin a perfectly good pastry. Fruitcake also usually has far too much
rum in it for my taste. A hint of rum is nice but many are so soaked in
the stuff it will serve better as a long term light source than food.

Make it a nice dense nut bread, maybe with some soft fruit in it, and
I'll eat it. But the commercial horrors that are inflicted on everyone
need to be just as villified as they are.
I guess we need to update an old saying too:
Never eat anything that weighs more than your head.

>Adamantius

Gunthar

(And White Castle is icky too.)

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