Fruitcake Toss Day is January 3, 2011
In Spain , England, the Bahamas, even France, this Christmas and wedding dessert has been loved and lauded for centuries.
Not in America. In the United States, the Fruitcake is the brunt of many a holiday joke. People who are considered crazy are called "fruitcakes." Since 1995, the citizens of Manitou Springs, Colorado have hosted Fruitcake Toss Day the first Saturday in January.
Since the first Saturday in 2011 is New Year's Day, Fruitcake Toss Day in Manitou Springs will be held the following Monday, January 3. Folks will gather to "recycle" the proverbial leftover holiday fruitcake by seeing who can toss it the farthest. To date, the record for the Great Fruitcake Toss was in 2007 for, 1,420 feet by Boeing engineers.
Before you get a flight out to Manitou Springs to participate in the Fruitcake Toss Day 2011, neglected fruitcake in tow, it wouldn't hurt to examine exactly what you are so irreverently tossing.
History of the Fruitcake, and I don't mean your cousin in the loony bin
Fruitcakes - also called Christmas or wedding cakes - date back to the Middle Ages. Hunters and soldiers carried this with them during long seasons away from home, and it sustained them. The cake was traditionally made with harvested fruits and nuts and soaked in brandy. Upper class Englishmen covered the cake in marzipan or almond paste. Very few were served without generous helpings of confectioner's sugar. The fruitcake was symbolic of harvest and good fortune. At one point, they were considered sinfully rich and were outlawed. When it finally became legal to eat them again, the popularity of the fruitcake spread throughout the European continent.
Settlers on the eastern seaboard in America during the 1600s continued the love of fruitcake traditions since nuts were plentiful and cheap. The first packaged fruitcakes didn't appear until 1913.
This article isn't addressing the fruitcakes that are mass-produced and sit on the shelves in stores. There is the legacy of fruit cake baking handed down through family generations. Grandmothers and aunts took a lot of time and money and quite a bit of pride in their creations to send homemade fruitcake to family and friends for Christmas. Did you know that a fruitcake made the old fashioned way can cost more than $30 to make and take up to six hours to prepare from start to finish?
Fruitcake: the object in famous novels
Perhaps the fruitcake in America got notoriety when Pulitzer Prize winning author Truman Capote wrote about his adventures with cousin Sook in A Christmas Memory. Sook's mission every Christmas was to create fruitcakes for folks who lived in her small Alabama town. (I wonder if the mailman ever thought about tossing one of Sook's fruitcakes.) Keep in mind A Christmas Memory took place during the Great Depression when many could scarcely feed their own families, let alone give of their food to someone else who wasn't kin.
Capote's aunt Marie Faulk Rudisill, later became known as the Fruitcake Lady. Rudisill appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno often dispensing sharp tongued advice to callers in a segment called Ask the Fruitcake Lady. Rudisill was Aunt Tiny in Capote's book A Christmas Memory. It was her own book - Fruitcake: Memories of Truman Capote and Sook that got her an invite to The Tonight Show. She taught both Leno and Mel Gibson the fine art of fruitcake making. It is said Rudisill was responsible for bringing dignity back to an old-time Christmas dessert that was getting bad press.
Based on Fruitcake Toss Day, fruitcakes in the United States are still getting bad press. I just hope that before participants in Manitou Springs , Colorado hurl fruitcake pieces and whole cakes through the air that they will think about the time, love and sacrifice that was baked into that loaf of cake filled with all kinds of fruits and nuts, maybe a little whiskey.
Other Sources
Marie Rudisill: Little Known Facts about Jay Leno's Fruitcake Lady
Some information from this article was taken from Linda Stradley on What's Cooking America
Cherished Fruitcake Recipes
Fruitcake by Wikipedia
Published by J.E. Ward
Writing has been my passion since I was six when I published my first picture book. In fifth grade, I wrote a play about my class, and my best friend showed it to everybody when I told her not to. My best fr... View profile
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12 Comments
Post a CommentThis is a GREAT article! Brought back some good memories from my childhood. Thanks for writing about this.
Thank you, Great Fruitcake, for the date correction and the website.
As spokesperson for The Great Fruitcake Recycling Project, and expert on all things fruitcake in Colorado, I attend the Fruitcake Toss every year to make sure the fruitcakes are disposed of responsibly. The date you listed for the toss is incorrect. It is always the first Saturday after the first of January. This year's toss is Saturday, January 8. I didn't see a link to their website in the story. It's http://manitousprings.org
Fun read!
What great fun, thanks J.E.!
Sounds very interesting~Since I don't like fruitcake I would love to be a part of this toss:-)
Very good! Thanks for sharing!
Excellent article; thanks for sharing - sounds like a fun event and the birds will have a feast!
Love fruitcake, love this article. I didn't know the history - especially the part about also being wedding cakes. Thanks for writing it!
This is a well written article and very informative.I hope it raises the consciousness of fellow Americans. Instead of tossing why not send it to some countries where the people are starving.