Tuesday, November 13, 2007

The Fruitcake Club

I've been depressed, but this humorous post about fruitcake cheered me up a bit. Here is the response I gave.

My father is trying to indoctrinate my son into the fruitcake club. No, not THAT fruitcake club, nor even the "nutty as a fruitcake" club, although my personal belief is that if you like fruitcake you are indeed certifiable. My son likes to cook and my father is hoping that my son and my mother will cook up a dandy Xmas fruitcake. I suppose it wouldn't be such an awful thing to humor dear old Dad--he's had a rather miserable three years since the stroke and if it's fruitcake he wants, perhaps it's fruitcake he should have. But my son will probably make faces at the smell of that ghastly candied fruit. That stuff is fit only for ghoulies, ghosties, and things that go bump in the night--and I know several ghosts who wouldn't touch it either!
What are your thoughts on fruitcake? Is it a maligned delicacy or merely malignant? Was it put on Earth by the Devil Himself to torture good Christian souls on their favorite holiday? Or is it some sort of alien creation like the pyramids and Stonehenge are rumored to be by the UFO-philes? Whatever the case, I am frightened of it. It looks like a block of mold. The only good fruitcake I ever had left out the horrific candied fruit and replaced it with maraschino cherries and Brazil nuts. That was not Satan fruitcake, as is the majority of fruitcake. That was angelic fruitcake.
That's your lesson for today, Kiddies. Be good for goodness sake. Or not only will Santa Claus call you out, but if you're run over by a reindeer walking home from someone's house on Christmas Eve, you will be eating fruitcake in hell for all eternity.
If the clergy really wanted to get people into church, they'd forget all this talk about premarital sex and promiscuity. They'd be preaching about eternal damnation complete with daily fruitcake rations. Now that's enough to scare anybody into devotion!
I think it might be fun to come up with some hellish holiday tales. Maybe I'll have a contest of some kind. Since I'm broke I don't know what the prize will be other than the love and admiration of your fellow contestants. But perhaps something will strike me and jar my brain out of its comatose state e'er the holiday season is o'er. After all, there has to be something fun about this stressful pair of months following my and Alice Cooper's favorite holiday!

2 comments:

Raine said...

does anyone actually eat it!?!?!? :O

Anonymous said...

I got into the habit of making fruitcake every year because my dad liked it. When I was little the lady who did our ironing always sold us wonderful fruitcakes--fresh and homemade--to eat or send to friends, so I never understood the calumny.
I think the secret to a good fruitcake is booze and plenty of it. Mine are made weeks (not months or decades!) ahead and wrapped in dishtowels soaked in brandy or rum, so they are NEVER dry. I have had people tell me that they never thought they would eat fruitcake, but that they realized after mine how wrong they had been.
Of course, if you really hate candied fruit, you should leave it out and put in more raisins, currants, etc. And maybe some hard sauce (with plenty of brandy in it, of course) would make it more palatable.