Fruit cake fun facts for National Fruit Cake Day

Just because Christmas is over and New Year's is still a few days away doesn't mean the celebrations have to end as Thursday was... National Fruit Cake Day! And, yes, the holiday staple might just be worth a celebration. Hey, the Eraserheads even wrote a song about it! Interestingly enough, this Noche Buena native didn't have such cheery origins. According to an article on the Discovery Travel and Living Channel (TLC) website, legend has it that early Egyptians buried their loved ones with an early version of the fruitcake as sustenance for their journey to the afterlife. The modern fruit cake began to take shape in the 16th century when, according to the TLC article, cheap sugar from the colonies arrived in Europe and found its way to fruit cake recipes in cupfuls, making the cake heavier and denser. This was also the time that candied fruits--again born of the cheap sugar imports--were added to the mix. In the 18th century, it became banned for being overly decadent. Which didn't stop the Victorians, when they got their hands on it, from adding alcohol to the already “sinfully rich”  fruit cake recipe. The article also said that in Roman times, the first fruit cakes contained pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and barley mash, and served as the battlefield ration of Roman soldiers because they kept well and didn't spoil easily. According to a segment on GMA News TV's "Kape at Balita," the fruit cake's shelf life also appealed to crusaders, who brought the cake along on their long journeys from Europe to Palestine. Its long shelf life is indeed one of the defining characteristics of the fruit cake. In Ohio, one family 's heirloom is not a piece of jewelry or furniture, but fruit cake. A story on People Magazine said that the Ford family in Berkey, Ohio had been keeping the last fruit cake that their ancestor Fidelia Ford had made in 1878. The fruit cake had remained untouched until talk show host Jay Leno took a bite out of it on his talk show in 2003, when the cake was 125 years old. Nowadays, fruit cake is a gift you can definitely expect to receive at least once during the holiday season--the food equivalent of mugs and calendars. Whether you like it or not is beside the point, though with its sugary tang, alcoholic kick, and ubuquitous presence under every Christmas tree, it can be hard to imagine a holiday season without it. — DVM, GMA News