It’s Cyber Monday
So there are lots of sales at Amazon. Click on this link and see if there’s something you can find that would be a great gift for someone you love. You can even treat yourself; I won’t mind a bit.
I happen to have a mad passion for this stuff, not always that easy to find except online. And although this particular item has gotten a bad bad rap, I have a sneaking fondness for it as well.
Now go ahead and mock me.
The only fruitcake I’ve ever liked is the one baked by the Trappist monks at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. (https://www.gethsemanifarms.org) Maybe, just maybe, it’s the bourbon they soak it in.
Fruitcake! I have more than a few bad memories of that concoction…maybe, just maybe, its possible to make it edible if not enjoyable 😉
I have a theory that its genetics that determines the particular arrangement and emphasis of our taste buds, which accounts for what is and is not, our particular ‘cup of tea’.
Oh, no mocking here! No one in my family will eat it, and no one I know, in fact. If you’re vouching for this one, that’s enough for me! It’ll be my lonely, secret, and not-so-guilty pleasure.
I have never been ashamed of or attempted to hide the fact that I really like fruitcake. It’s who I am. I was born this way, I can’t change, and I don’t want to.
I am a little different from some others like me, though, in that it’s the actual cake part I really love, so the closer it approaches all fruit the less I like it. The Gethsemani ones are good.
Fruitcake. I thought you were better than that. I don’t understand how Yankee brains can be so smart but Yankee tongues can be so foolish.
P.S. I just this minute learned that “Yankee” is capitalized. Something new everyday, right?
Everyone knows that fruitcake is not biodegradable, right?
Be careful out there…
The experiment has begun. Office was in need of an iPod 4 32GB. Success? Failure? Unknown?
Fruit cake, baked by my mom, was wonderful. It was moist, chocked full of pecans and candied fruits (home grown cherries, apples, and pears) and lightly flavored with bourbon. Homemade fruit cake is a delight, commercially available fruit cake is a fruit cake of another kind. Since mom died I have not eaten fruit cake and have had to buy all my underwear. 😉
I make a kickass fruitcake. No green candied fruit (green is for fresh vegetables, thankyouverymuch) the best pecans and walnuts, two kinds of raisins, each cake wrapped in VSOP brandy-drenched cheesecloth and allowed to sit and soak it up for a minimum of three weeks. The one year I didn’t make it, I actually received complaints (I had no idea certain relatives actually looked forward to it).
Randomthoughts,
May I be an honorary a relative and receive a fruitcake?
I love American-style fruit cake. The English style that my Mum used to make, not so much. I make a bunch of mini-loaves every Christmas that is full of vanilla and butter and eggs and glaced fruit and nuts. Yum. Which reminds me…time to get cracking! Only my friends who adore it will be offered any.
Ha! Before I saw what the link was I was guessing that it was jello you had a mad passion for and couldn’t figure out why you were saying that it is hard to find – you fooled me, Neo!
The local farmer’s market by me sells a lot of nougat and “Turkish Delight” – all imported – around this time of year. I’ve always passed; but, maybe I should get some to give it a try. The rose-flavored Turkish delight sounds somewhat intriguing.
As far as fruitcake; yes, good quality fruitcake is delicious. But, unfortunately, most of what’s on the market is bad – very bad – hence the bad rap.
Lastly, “Cyber Monday”? Just another MSM gimmick to pass off as news so they don’t have to tell us what is really going on.
Charles: I have to say I even like mediocre fruitcake. Or at least, I like the dried fruit in it.
Ben
You don’t have to be north of the Mason Dixon line to like fruitcake- or to make it. The Corsicana Fruitcake , made in the Texas town of that name, is very well known. I like fruitcake, though I prefer the homemade versions that leave out the candied fruit.
Regarding calling Neo a Yankee- that depends on which definition of Yankee you are going to use. I have come across three definitions of Yankee: as defined in New England, south of the Mason Dixon line, or outside the United States. As a native son of Red Sox Nation, I am not going to talk of a certain team from New York.
The first definition of Yankee I came across was in New England, where I was born and raised. In New England, a Yankee is someone whose family is “old stock,” whose family was living in New England before 1800, or before the Revolutionary War. By this definition, very few people in New England are Yankees. If a New Englander’s family has lived several generations in New England , the odds are that the New Englander is of Irish, Slavic, French, or Italian ancestry- or some combination thereof. If a New Englander’s family has come from “away,” then that New Englander is not a Yankee. My parents came from away, so I was not a Yankee- even though I had numerous ancestors who had fought in the Revolutionary War.
In my experience, the Yankee/not Yankee differentiation in New England is descriptive, not pejorative. I grew up in a rural New England knowing several families whose Revolutionary War forebears were honored with statues at the state capitol building. While they were proud of what their ancestors had done, they never lorded over others for having famous ancestors. They never mentioned those statues. I only found about the statues as an adult, in doing some research. The old Yankee doesn’t brag, is not pretentious, and never opens his mouth when being silent will do. As one family with a famous ancestor had a dairy farm, it could be said that shoveling cow manure strips away pretension rather quickly.
South of the Mason Dixon line, every one north of the line is a Yankee.Outside the US, US citizens are considered Yankees, Yanks, or Yanquis.The only place I am NOT a Yankee is in my native New England. I have lived in Texas for many years. While Neo has lived in New England for decades, in New England she is not considered a Yankee, because she is from “away.”
When I first came to Texas from New England, I read a letter to the editor about a “Yankee from New York eating chopped liver.” Chopped liver is a standby in Jewish delicatessens. I laughed to myself, as no way could a Jewish person from NOO YAWK CITY be considered a Yankee in New England.
I second what Parker said about RandomThought’s fruitcake. on Cyber Monday, can we have a Cyber Fruitcake?
Gringo: you are absolutely correct. In New England, I’m the antithesis of a Yankee. Most definitely “from away.”
I’m from Louisiana: you’re all carpetbagging Yankees to me.
As to the fruitcake, I was just teasing. I do not believe I have ever been in the same room as a fruitcake, let alone ate one. I’m a pumpkin pie man, all the way.
Yes, pumpkin pie. No crust. Mmmm
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