Fruitcake Lovers Unite

I'll trade you a lump of coal for that there fruitcake, mister...

Would you settle for 29,000 tons of coal?
I can probably get it for you.

Thats still better then fruitcake!

this ain't my first trip around the net.

(what are the shipping costs on free coal?)




and i DO like a "good" fruitcake. (lotsa rum)

Blech!!!

Spending the New Year in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, I was grateful to receive more then my share of fruitcakes.

I didnt get any friutcakes when I was there, but then again I was up where the fighting was and it took a while for us to get ANY mail.

I don't think they allow fruitcake in combat zones.

(they can be used offensively at times)

I was deployed in an artillery unit so our unit did also have periods without mail service ... still before and after these periods of fighting and transition, I was deluged with fruitcakes from many sides of my family.

They do violate the rules of war.
They are classified as a chemical weapon, and as such they are outlawed.

I was a corpsman with a USMC infantry company, and we were always up in the fighting.

That's probably why my captain never really liked me because I could have got him sanctioned and court martialed by simply possessing my fruity bricks/edible UN violations.

When I was in the military, I would have welcomed a good fruitcake. I would have welcomed dog food. One of the cooks was so dumb he had to go to the vegetable locker carrying cabbage and lettuce, to keep from getting the wrong stuff. I heard him more than once, repeating, "Cabbage left hand, lettuce right hand."

I love love love Panforte Nero. Damn, I should try making it..




quoting -
"Panforte Nero di Siena - White are the sugar and the flour, golden are the honey and the mellow peel of lime, orange and melon. Almonds and candied fruit peep out from between rice paper and hazelnut grains. But the winners are pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg. Pane Forte, strong bread, as eaten in Medieval times, when honey's tenacity reined in the taste of sweet pepper and candied fruits. But this bread was strong in tempting aromas and rare spices brought to Siena by merchants and knights from the Orient in the XIV century. Strong in taste, heady in flavour, its recipe is ancient yet ever new: six hundred years passed in a flash."

Do make my own panettone


in pandoro pans like this one -


and I used to make the Joy of Cooking fruitcake that involved something like twelve eggs and was wrapped and stored in cheesecloth soaked in Hennessy Cognac and then foil. Served sliced very thin..

Did you hear about the electrocution at the bakery? A man sat on a fruitcake and a currant went up his arse.

Much prefer plum pudding with hard sauce, however.

I am shocked, Miz Letty.

Letty


I'm very suspicious about fruitcake. How come it lasts forever, even when you don't want it to? ( I suspect there's more to this than the alcohol content) It just never seems to go "off" Why?

I have 2 editions of the classic "Joy of Cooking" book by Irma S. Rombauer. It was 1st published in 1931. I have 1 from 1936 and another from 1975.
In the 1st there are 2 or 3 recipes for fruitcake, each producing 12 pound loaves (or perhaps several smaller loaves-no mention of that). Prohibition of alcohol in the U.S. ended in 1933. These recipes called for "whisky."
My later version's recipes result in loaves totaling about the same weight. They called for "bourbon whisky and wine."
She wrote in the header to the category: "Many people feel that these cakes improve greatly with age. When they are well saturated with alcoholic liquors, which raise the spirits and keep down mold, and are buried in powdered sugar in tightly closed tins, they have been enjoyed as long as 25 years after baking."