Almost-edible uses for fruitcake

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/08/2017 (3252 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For reasons I don’t completely understand, I can’t stop thinking about that (bad word) fruitcake.

Unless you’ve been in a sugar-induced coma for the past week, you’ll know that I am referring here to the indestructible 106-year-old fruitcake that researchers recently found in Antarctica.

According to a gaggle of news reports, this fruitcake withstood a century in the coldest, windiest and most hostile environment on Earth and was discovered in Antarctica’s oldest building, a hut on Cape Adare.

Legendary British explorer Robert Falcon Scott apparently brought the fruitcake, made by the British biscuit company Huntley & Palmers, to Antarctica during his team’s 1910-1913 trek to the South Pole and left it behind in the hut, where it was recently found wrapped in wax paper and the remains of a tin.

The big news? According to conservators with the Antarctic Heritage Trust, the 106-year-old, perfectly preserved fruitcake looked and smelled “almost edible.”

Out of journalistic fairness, I should point out here that the words “almost edible” could easily be used to describe any fruitcake created since the dawn of time.

“Living and working in Antarctica tends to lead to a craving for high-fat, high-sugar food, and fruitcake fits the bill nicely, not to mention going very well with a cup of tea,” conservation manager Lizzie Meek told National Geographic earlier this month.

“There was a very, very slight rancid butter smell to it, but other than that, the cake looked and smelled edible,” Meek explained.

At this point, I’d like to perform a brief scientific test to determine how shocked we, as a society, are to discover that a fruitcake could endure such harsh conditions for more than a century and emerge unscathed.

So, hands up, anyone who is surprised that researchers were able to pull an almost perfectly preserved fruitcake out of the ice. Go ahead, take your time. We’re doing this in the name of science.

OK, I am counting exactly… ZERO hands! The truth is, I am not even remotely surprised that none of you are surprised that, based on this example, fruitcake is completely indestructible.

In Canada, where fruitcake also is known as Christmas Cake, children are raised safely in the knowledge that this holiday delicacy is so (bad word) dense that it is capable of deflecting bullets.

It is so resistant to damage that legendary late-night talk show host Johnny Carson once famously joked: “There’s only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep passing it around.”

Back in the day, I can recall my mother using her beloved nesting tins to bake a series of rum-intensive fruitcakes, each of which was smaller than the last, and which she would give away as gifts to unsuspecting relatives, each of whom would then give their fruitcake away to another person whose teeth they hoped to destroy, and so on.

From what we read and partially understood, it seems Robert Scott’s uneaten fruitcake will now be left for all eternity in the hut on Cape Adare, which is for the best, because we can only imagine what would happen if this hardy baked good fell into the wrong hands.

Off the top of our head, here are a handful of uses for indestructible fruitcakes:

1. Imagine how quickly the war on terror would be won if stealth bombers dropped several tonnes of fruitcake on unsuspecting evil-doers. “Death by fruitcake” would become the military’s terrifying new motto. It would not be the first time fruitcake has been used as an airborne weapon. In Manitou Springs, Colo., there is an annual fruitcake toss wherein unwanted cakes are flung from medieval-style catapults.

2. On the flipside, home bakers seeking protection from the forces of evil could stack up piles of fruitcake easily, to construct “almost edible” bomb-proof shelters in their basements.

3. If you happen to be a student or just down on your luck, here are two words that will instil hope in the heart of any bargain-basement interior designer — fruitcake furniture.

4. Can’t afford new stone slabs for your backyard patio? Thinking about new durable siding to replace your weather-beaten walls? Look no further than the fruitcake slabs that have been aging quietly in your pantry for the past decade.

5. And, of course, fruitcake makes the perfect holiday gift. Who doesn’t need a new doorstop, or paper weight, or even a new set of dumbbells for weight training. Nothing will improve your physique faster than doing arm curls with a 20-pound set of festive pastries.

6. Considering its molecular density — and that nothing can penetrate hardened glazed fruit — they could be used for storing depleted uranium.

7. Finally, imagine how much fun it would be to gather at the local football field and fire leftover fruitcakes out of cannons… at Saskatchewan Roughriders fans.

So, no, we are not the least bit surprised that a humble fruitcake could endure the harshest conditions on the planet for more than a century. It may not look like much on the surface, but they say fruitcake has a lot in common with newspaper columnists such as me — it’s soaked in booze and a little bit nutty.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca