On January 17, 1912, explorer Robert Falcon Scott almost made history. On that date, he
and a small team of explorers completed a harrowing journey to the geographic South
Pole. As it turned out, the group wasn’t, as they had hoped, the first to ever arrive
at the remote location. A group led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had completed
its own expedition to the South Pole just 34 days earlier. Scott’s disappointment
in arriving second would prove to be tragically short-lived: on the return journey, he and
his entire group succumbed to exposure and starvation.
Of all the artifacts recovered over the years from Scott’s ill-fated expedition, 2017
may have turned up the strangest: a fully intact fruitcake. It was found at an early
Antarctic base camp, and historic documents show that Scott had brought the same brand
of fruitcake with him on his South Pole sojourn. It was a practical choice for a long trek
through uninviting climes: Fruitcake is a calorie-dense food, and it’s resilient—like,
really resilient. The scientists who found Scott’s century-old fruitcake said it was,
quote, “in excellent condition,” and reportedly looked “almost edible.” Which, to be fair, describes
most fruitcake, in my experience.
OK, I’m sorry. This video is actually about going beyond cheap punchlines to tell the
surprisingly interesting history of fruitcake, but when one is just sitting there like that...
I’ll do my best to make sure any jokes at fruitcake’s expense are more than just tasteless
filler tinged with bitterness. I mean that’s fruitcake's j-- nope I'm doing it again.
Dangit. It’s too easy. Run the intro.
Hi, I’m Justin Dodd. Welcome to Food History. The story of Robert Scott’s long-forgotten
fruitcake seems to confirm some of the worst stereotypes about the infamous baked good,
but I promise I’m not here to bash it. Like Guy Fieri, fruitcake may be the butt of a
lot of jokes, but there’s a reason it secured its place in our cultural firmament. Oop,
sorry, just got a good idea for a tattoo. A constellation of stars outlines a picture
of Guy Fieri eating a fruitcake. Right there, wow that's good. It’s a metaphor.
The earliest record of something resembling fruitcake comes from Ancient Rome. Recipes
for a confection called satura called for mixing raisins, pomegranate seeds, and pine
nuts with barley mash and honeyed wine. It was supposedly a favorite snack of Roman soldiers
heading to the battlefield, and not—as far as my personal research could tell—because
chomping down on some soggy raisin cake whipped the soldiers into an appropriately bellicose
fury. Its portability and shelf-life were valuable assets. Satura, with its hodgepodge
of ingredients, is even thought to be connected to the origin of the word satire, the cutting
but humorous literary form the Romans helped create.
A version of fruitcake that more closely resembled what we eat (or don’t eat) today appeared
in the Middle Ages. The Crusades led to an increase in trade between Europe and the Muslim
world, and dried fruits imported from the Mediterranean became more common in parts
of Europe. People started baking them into their cakes for special occasions. Different
countries throughout the continent put their own spin on the dessert. Italy had panforte,
which literally translates to “strong bread,” a reference to the recipe’s aggressive spices.
Germany produced stollen, a baked good with fruit and nuts that’s more like bread than
the cake we’re familiar with here in the States.
The English were enjoying their own version of the dish by the end of the 16th century. And
if you’ve ever listened to Christmas music and asked yourself: ‘what the heck is figgy
pudding, anyway?’ the answer is basically fruitcake, with at least one key difference.
Fruitcake is baked, while figgy pudding is shaped into a dome and either boiled or steamed.
In Britain, the word pudding can be used for anything from blood sausages (known as black
pudding) to savory baked goods (like Yorkshire puddings). But nowadays the word most commonly
refers to any sweet dish eaten at the end of a meal, roughly analogous to dessert here
in the states. As for the adjective ‘figgy,’ some food historians say that in Cornwall
figgy pudding is just a local name for plum pudding. Which, confusingly, usually doesn’t
contain plums. It may have originally, but nowadays it’s usually made with raisins
or currants. Other food historians point to a recipe in a 14th-century cookbook compiled
by the master-cooks of King Richard II for Fygey. That dish was made with ground almonds,
wine, and figs, and some say it’s an ancestor of figgy pudding. At some point in all of
this mess British carolers started singing "Now bring us some figgy pudding" to their
wealthy neighbors around Christmastime. Sounds a little entitled, but go off, hungry carol
singers. Yes, I have seen the movie Love, Actually. Why do you ask?
The dish underwent a major change following Europe’s colonization of the Americas. Sugar
was suddenly plentiful in the so-called “old world”—check out our episode about some
of the most influential foods of all time to explore the history of that sweet-but-often-destructive
ingredient—and candying fruit became a common preservation method. Candied fruit found its
way into plum pudding, and all that added sugar turned the hearty, relatively nutritious
cake into a decadent indulgence. And a popular one—in 1748 a Swede visiting England commented
“the art of cooking as practised by Englishmen does not extend much beyond roast beef and
plum pudding.” 18th-century-Swede-burn.
We know that fruitcake appeared on Christmas tables shortly after it spread through Europe,
but we don’t know exactly how the dish became associated with the holiday. In medieval times,
labor-intensive desserts made from fine ingredients tended to be saved for special occasions like
holidays, so fruitcake’s connection to Christmas makes sense. During the Victorian Era, when
much of the tradition and iconography around Christmas was solidified in pop culture, the
connection between fruitcake and Yuletide became even stronger.
The Victorians loved baked fruitcake, for some reason, and many of them couldn’t wait until the holidays
to enjoy it. At the wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, guests were served a fruitcake
for dessert, a slice of which actually sold at auction in 2016 for 1500 pounds. After
Victoria, fruitcakes became the cake of choice for English weddings, though their popularity
has waned over time.
At least among the general public. Fruitcake was on the menu at the royal weddings of Princess
Diana and Prince Charles in 1981 and Kate Middleton and Prince William in 2011.
So why did Victorians love fruitcake so much? It may have been the booze. They added alcohol
to the recipe as a way to preserve the cake and boost its flavor. After the fresh cake
has a chance to cool, bakers will wrap it in a cloth soaked in liquor and seal it in
an airtight container. Alcohol kills bacteria, as well as any yeast or mold that would otherwise
grow on a fruitcake and make it inedible. This process is called denaturation, and while
we’ve mentioned it a couple times in other episodes of Food History, we’ve never really
explained what it means for something to denature.
Denaturation can occur for a number of reasons, including changes in temperature or pH. When
you cook an egg and the white becomes opaque, for example, it’s because the proteins in
the albumen are denaturing. When a protein denatures, the sequence of amino acids comprising
the protein remains the same, but its shape changes, sometimes irreversibly so. That changed
shape can cause the protein to function differently, and in the case of a living organism like
bacteria, it can actually kill the microbe.
When bacteria meets alcohol, one of the things going on is the alcohol denaturing the proteins
and stopping cellular function. Denaturation is one of the ways hand sanitizer works, and
it’s how fruitcake can last so long without going bad. Am I telling you to sanitize your
groceries by rubbing fruitcake all over them? Sure. Why not? It’s been a weird year. When it comes to shelf life, it also helps
that fruitcake is made with low-moisture ingredients like nuts and dried fruit, giving bacteria
less to feed on in the first place.
Some people claim that fruitcake actually gets better with age. The fruit in fruit cake
contains bitter flavor compounds, called tannins, which start to mellow out with time. As the
cake ages, the bitter flavors are toned down and other complex flavors become more pronounced.
This, incidentally, is roughly the same process that happens when wine is aged. So if you
want to annoy your family around the holidays, try pointing out the subtle notes of wet earth
and oak in your aunt’s fruit cake. Or, you know, just drink a bottle of liquefied fruitcake.
That's probably gonna work, I’m not gonna stop you.
But how long can a properly aged fruitcake last? According to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, mail-order fruit cakes can stay good for up to 6 months in the fridge and
up to a year in the freezer. There are a number of variables in play, though—most notably
moisture content. We know that Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic fruit cake at
least looked edible after chilling for almost 110 years, and there’s evidence that some
fruit cakes can last even longer than that.
One family from Michigan has held on to the same fruitcake for 142 years. It was baked
by Fidelia Ford in 1878 shortly before she passed away. Her husband decided to keep the
cake as a way to remember her, and decades later, the couple’s descendants are still
honoring that wish—for the most part. In 2003, they brought the cake on The Tonight
Show and allowed Jay Leno to sample a nibble of it in front of a live studio audience.
His review: “It needs more time.”
That actually wasn’t the first time fruitcake was memorably skewered by a host of the Tonight
Show. Some people credit Johnny Carson for giving it its bad reputation, famously joking
that, while fruitcakes seemed to be a perennial gift, nobody ever actually ate them. It’s
true that fruitcake may not be the most popular dish on the Christmas table, but that’s
no problem—you can always save the leftovers and serve them next year.
Thanks for watching Food History! I hope you learned a little bit more about your great
aunt’s favorite dessert. If you have an idea for a future episode of the show, leave
it in the comments below. Happy holidays from all of us at Mental Floss, and have a safe
New Year.