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Date Posted: 12:03:13 12/20/07 Thu
Author: SS
Subject: FRUITCAKEPOEM

Why All The Hate For Fruitcake?
By: Noah Eaton
12/20/07

In December, there is no gift more dreaded or feared,
that when stored in an airtight tin can last twenty-six years,
comprised of dried fruit and mixed nuts, and weighs over two pounds,
it’s like a game of “Hot Potato” once it makes the rounds.

Each year it’s been treated as the kingpin of doorstops,
some use it as a replacement for their Duraflame log,
relatives aside, fruitcake can make some people scared straight,
treating it like a pin cushion or some large paperweight.

My friends use it instead of sand bags during El Nino,
and my cat Poodeedoots uses it as a scratching post,
most find this mainstay nuttier than Charles Everett Koop,
their first instinct being to ship it off to Guadeloupe.

Some even pass it on as something they get for Christmas,
for the host of a New Years Party, offered as a gift,
there’s a line drawn in the flour: you love it or hate it,
but why all the hate for fruitcake, now THAT’S a good question.

There used to be a time when fruitcake plainly reigned supreme,
dating back to ancient Rome, where their type of recipe,
consisted of pomegranate seeds, pine nuts and raisins,
all mashed up with barley, which just happened to phase in.

It was prized for its portability and shelf life,
in fact, they brought it to the battlefield with them each fight,
eventually fruit and spices were added to the mix,
during the Middle Ages when crusaders got their fix.

By the 1400’s, the British worshipped their fruitcake,
when dried fruits from the Mediterranean came one day,
and with the colonies having a boon in cheap, raw goods,
sugar was added, making it dense as petrified wood.

By the eighteenth century, their love became obsessive,
when they baked fruitcakes at the end of every nut harvest,
to save and nibble the next year to renew the cycle,
in the hope that such robust harvests can be recycled.

By 1837, fruitcake was the treat to beat,
it became the centerpiece to each Victorian Tea,
Queen Victoria even waited a whole year, some say,
to eat a birthday fruitcake so that she would show good taste.

Can you believe there once was a custom in the UK,
for unmarried wedding guests to put a slice of the cake,
under their pillow at night so they will dream of the one,
they will marry someday, that special someone that they love?

In fact, their love was too strong; it became “sinfully rich”,
and fruitcakes were banned all across Continental Europe,
throughout the 1800’s, fruitcake suffered a setback,
but nonetheless remained a much sought-after teatime snack.

To this day, fruitcake remains revered all around the world……
……except in the United States, where it makes people hurl,
where it used to be as popular as ribbon candy,
oh, right, you don’t know what that is, consult your great granny.

Yet, in the early 90’s, Johnny Carson cracked a joke,
on the “Tonight Show” that dealt fruitcake a most fatal blow,
claiming there’s only one fruitcake in human existence,
and folks keep sending it to each other like a virus.

His jape best determined its place in the modern psyche,
gibing some fruitcake sent him a fruitcake tirelessly,
comedians keep milking that chestnut without a care,
citing you can’t find it on any menu anywhere.

Five hundred even show up each year in Manitou Springs,
for the Great Fruitcake Toss to test their projectile moxie,
where they hurl and launch fruitcakes with a spun gun gloatingly,
once one was catapulted four hundred and twenty feet.

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