The Deliciously Ridiculous History of Fruitcakes

Summary

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Ridiculous History – “The Deliciously Ridiculous History of Fruitcakes”

Hosts: Ben Bowlin & Noel Brown
Date: December 11, 2025
Podcast: iHeartPodcasts

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Overview

This festive episode dives into the curious and often comical journey of the fruitcake, especially its holiday connections, cultural baggage, and surprisingly deep historical roots. Hosts Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown trace fruitcake’s evolution from ancient Roman staple to mass-produced holiday joke, exploring everything from ingredient origins to Catholic butter regulations, regional varieties, and why America can’t stop making fun of this much-maligned dessert. Expect signature banter, offbeat trivia, and nostalgia, all served up with holiday cheer.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fruitcake’s Polarizing Reputation

• Christmas Vibes: Both hosts reminisce about their holiday spirit, noting the secular, cultural side of Christmas in the US and Europe.
  • “People here like Christmas in a way that is not necessarily always religious. It's just a fun tie, I would say.” — Ben [03:04]
• Fruitcake in American Culture: Introduced as a running joke and frequently regifted, many Americans see fruitcake as more of a gag than a delicacy.
  • “It's a gag gift a little bit. Fruitcake sounds sort of bizarre...you would say, well, it's a dense, candied fruit, nuts, whatever carbs we have lying around. And, you know, a lot of booze.” — Ben [04:36]
  • “Kind of the thing you give to someone you re-gift because someone's given you this lump of, you know, weird hardtack…” — Noel [04:24]

2. Ancient and Medieval Roots

• Roman “Satura”: Fruitcake’s ancestor, the satura, was more like a dense energy bar for soldiers—barley, pine nuts, dried fruit, and honeyed wine. Its name means “full” or “sated” in Latin.
  • “This thing is way less like a cake and way more like an energy bar.” — Ben [07:10]
• Preservation Prowess: With candied and dried fruit, fruitcake could last and feed people in tough times, a vital staple rather than just a treat.
• Etymology & Fun Facts: Playful banter over the word “satura” and how it connects to being “saturated” or “satiated.”
  • “Satura...means full or sated. So I think you got it.” — Ben [08:04]

3. Technological “Advances” & Regional Variants

• Candied Fruit as Tech: Drying and candying were medieval forms of technology, prolonging shelf life and enabling fruitcake experimentation in Europe.
  • “Drying and candying fruit could be argued was a form of technology…” — Noel [12:17]
• Global Styles: Shout-outs to Italian panforte, German stollen, British plum pudding, and Caribbean rum cakes—each with unique textures and booziness.
  • “Versions...come from the Caribbean islands as well as Britain's famous plum pudding, which is...a moist fruitcake that's soaked in rum for a very long time.” — Noel [13:22]
• Butter Ban: Catholic regulations once banned butter in baked goods; Pope Innocent VIII’s “Butter Letter” (1490) allowed its use, a game-changer for bakers in Saxony.
  • “It wasn't until 1490...Pope Innocent 8 finally allowed the good Catholics...to use butter.” — Ben [16:42]

4. Sugar Boom & Mass Production Woes

• Impact of Sugar: Sugar from the colonies led to widespread, affordable candied fruits, making fruitcake a special-occasion staple across Europe and America.
  • “They figure out...a high concentration of sugar can preserve fruit. And this created a glut of candied fruit.” — Ben [18:46]
• From Delicacy to Disdain: With the industrial age, homemade fruitcakes—once luxurious and personal—gave way to factory-made versions: dry, tasteless, mass-produced, and ripe for ridicule.
  • “At the height of their fame, fruitcakes were made at home...Everyone wants to keep up with the Joneses, but not everyone can afford to buy the individual ingredients and a lot of people don't have the time to make this.” — Ben [30:36]
  • “They flooded the market and...there's no love behind it. It's just something that everybody has. They're all the same and they're all kind of gross.” — Noel [32:19]

5. Fruitcake as Insult and Pop Culture Punchline

• Media Mockery: Classic sitcoms and especially Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” cemented fruitcake as the ultimate regift-and-joke item.
  • Notable clip:
    • “Do you eat it?” — Carson
    • “No, that's the dam. That's the damn the same. Nobody eats them.” — Guest [36:10]
  • “Johnny Carson is the reason fruitcake stumbled from a flex to a joke...” — Ben [35:07]
• Slang Roots: Term “fruitcake” became derogatory, equated with being “nuts” or “crazy.”
  • “According to...the Google AI overview...it's an insult...can be offensive...like calling someone ‘off their rocker.’” — Noel [24:07]

6. Mystery: Why Christmas?

• No Clear Origin: Fruitcake’s specific association with Christmas isn’t directly explained by its ingredients. Likely, it generalized from being a luxury or celebration item, evolving alongside gift-giving and holiday traditions.
  • “No one's sure how fruitcake became so intimately tied with Christmas, but we know...they were a go-to item for pretty much any special event.” — Ben [23:34]

7. Enduring Legacy & Weird Traditions

• The Great Fruitcake Toss: Contemporary celebrations, like Manitou Springs, Colorado’s fruitcake-tossing competition, keep the tradition alive in new, irreverent ways.
  • “People gather in town...and they just literally try to see who can toss it the farthest.” — Ben [39:05]
• Extreme Shelf Life: Reference to fruitcakes found intact (and edible?) after a century in the Antarctic, underlining their legendary durability.
  • “A fruitcake...had lasted a century and was edible, more or less.” — Noel [20:10]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Fruitcake’s Fanbase:
  • “People who like fruitcake, they really like it. The fan base is like K-pop level ferocious, for sure.” — Ben [05:55]
• On Ancient Origins:
  • “Fruitcake as a concept is so old...It's almost like the invention of the wheel or the taming of fire. It's impossible to figure out a specific moment where an individual came up with the idea.” — Ben [06:43]
• Fruitcake Insult:
  • “Fruitcake is often thrown around...as an insult...can be considered offensive…” — Noel [24:07]
• Johnny Carson’s Bit:
  • “Did you ever get a fruitcake for Christmas? Always.” — Carson [36:06]
  • “Do you eat it?” — Carson [36:09]
  • “No, that's the dam. That's the damn the same. Nobody eats them.” — Guest [36:10]
• On Regifting:
  • “If you are the kind of person to practice re-gifting, the fruitcake is perfect...voila, you send it back the next year. And over time, this becomes kind of a wholesome prank.” — Ben [20:45]
• On Homemade vs Mass-Produced:
  • “Homemade things might've taken a bit of a hit, but then over time you start to realize there's this backlash where...no, actually homemade things are better.” — Noel [31:09]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Topic | Timestamp | |---------------------------------------------|-----------------| | Christmas in the US & Denmark | 01:57 – 04:00 | | Fruitcake’s Joke Status in America | 04:00 – 06:00 | | Roman Satura & Ancient Origins | 06:19 – 08:58 | | Dried Fruit Technology & European Variants | 11:35 – 13:22 | | Butter Ban and Pope’s “Butter Letter” | 16:10 – 18:14 | | Sugar Revolution & Mass Production | 18:46 – 21:39 | | Mystery: The Christmas Connection | 23:06 – 24:07 | | Fruitcake as Pop Culture Punchline | 35:07 – 37:42 | | Fruitcake Toss & Modern Weird Traditions | 38:25 – 40:47 |

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Flow, Tone, and Takeaway

Ben and Noel’s playful, pun-filled back-and-forth makes this history lesson highly accessible and warm, reflecting on personal quirks and the weirdness of culinary tradition. They neither “nag” nor shame anyone’s food preferences, instead embracing fruitcake’s idiosyncrasies and underdog status.

The episode highlights how a once-luxurious staple became a running joke, but also how traditions endure, morphing into new forms (like fruitcake tossing). It closes with genuine holiday wishes and appreciation for homemade, heartfelt gifts—fruitcake or otherwise.

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Final Word

Love it, hate it, or just pass it on to the next person, the fruitcake has traveled centuries and continents to earn its ridiculous place in history and holiday lore. For the hosts, its story is about preservation, adaptation, and the joy (and humor) baked into shared traditions.

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Transcript

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[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

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[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

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[Ben Bullen]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartradio. Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous historians. Thank you as always so much for tuning in. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And that's beginning to look a lot like our super producer, Max Williams.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Maxi Holidays, Maxie Holidays to you. I am the Kris Kringle of this podcast, aren't I? You kind of are. You're a bit of a Kringle esque.

[Ben Bullen]

Figure and I am getting a little.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Gray in the beard, so.

[Ben Bullen]

Okay, watch out, man, you can see both our faces. So that's. So folks, you may recognize the dulcet tones of none other than my brother in arms, Noel Copenhagen Brown.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Oh man, I just came from the land of Christmas where they invented Christmas, right? The Danish, it is known, invented Christmas.

[Ben Bullen]

It's like Legos at Christmas.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

They love it there. It's so cool. I went to the oldest gay bar in the world, which, if you can imagine, was absolutely blown out with Christmas stuff. It's this tiny little corner spot and I'm forgetting the name now, but just look up. Oldest gay bar in the world and incredible Christmas decorations. Went to this place called Tivoli Gardens, which is like this old timey amusement park, absurd Christmas markets. So I'm very in the Christmas spirit whether I want to be or not.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

You're Ben, by the way, permanently in the Christmas period. Yes, me.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, thank you. Yeah. They. They do call me. They do call me. Ben Bullen. In this neck of the global woods, we are ourselves fans of Christmas, and if you are not from the United States, there's something that we need to get out of the way super quickly and at the top. People here like Christmas in a way that is not necessarily always religious. It's just a fun tie, I would say.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

I fall into that for sure. And I would say it's hard to say because I didn't ask everybody in particular, but in Europe, it certainly. There's a religious component, but it also just is a vibe, man. It's a lot of fun. It's a celebration of culture, because even without the religious component, it's still got such a tradition and, like, a legacy of all of the various, you know, songs and decorations and little Christmas markets, not to mention confections.

[Ben Bullen]

Ah, yes. Yeah. Here we go, folks. Another thing about the United States is that you've heard of fruitcake, and if you are like most Americans, you probably think of it more as an old joke in holiday pop culture instead of an actual food.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Kind of the thing you think of as being a crappy gift or something you give to someone you re gift because someone's giving you this lump of, you know, weird hardtack, and you just kind of pass it on. But it's not really a pay it forward kind of thing, is it?

[Ben Bullen]

It's a gag gift a little bit. Yeah. And this, I mean, fruitcake sounds sort of bizarre. If you were to explain it to an alien that landed on earth and asked you what a fruitcake was, you would say, well, it's a dense, candied fruit, nuts, whatever carbs we have lying around. And, you know, a lot of booze. More than a little booze.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Yeah. It's what Paul Hollywood might call a bit claggy. And what Pru might say is a bit too boozy. And Pru likes her booze.

[Ben Bullen]

And it's almost. You know, I was thinking about this, guys. It's almost like something a stoner would dream up. When they're up late at night, they have the munchies, and they only have weird stuff in the pantry.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Just toss it in the mixer. Although a stoner probably wouldn't go to the trouble of baking a thing. But I like where your head's at, Ben. You're definitely. You're on the right track. It is a bit of a kitchen sink type confection.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, kind of like how I think the Three of us have been there at some point in our lives. It's kind of like improvising soup, you know what I mean? You gotta make a soup and you're like, ah, what do we have here? What are the. Oh, how old are these radishes?

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Well, that's the best place to use a questionable radish, then, is in a soup because it's disguised by all the broth.

[Ben Bullen]

There we go. And Noel, as we'll see in today's holiday episode, fruitcake was not always as maligned as it is in the modern day. Instead, once upon a time, for quite some time, it was enormously popular. It probably saved a few lives. And people who like fruitcake, they really like it. The fan base is like K pop level ferocious, for sure.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

So why don't we set our minds back to the days of the ancient Romans who, you know, came up with a lot of things and it turns out they also more or less came up with what we might think of as something along the lines of a modern fruitcake. Although, is there really a modern fruitcake? Isn't the idea of it that it is technically kind of an antiquated thing?

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, exactly. So here we go. We're traveling back.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Ah, yes.

[Ben Bullen]

So here we are. Here we are. We made it. So, as you were saying, Noel, fruitcake as a concept is so old and so ubiquitous that it's. It's almost like the invention of the wheel or the taming of fire. It's impossible to figure out a specific moment where an individual came up with the idea. But like you said, the earliest thing that we could properly call fruitcake esque goes back to ancient Rome. They made something. You could call it a confection. It was called Satura S T U R A. And if you heard the pause right before we said confection, that's because this thing is way less like a cake and way more like an energy bar.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

I'm going to do that thing I do where I ask about the etymology of a word with no absolute idea. Satura. I look at and immediately think saturated, which is the vibe of a fricking chunk of fruitcake. It is so densely packed with all this stuff. You could call it somewhat saturated with gac. Those things in this version include barley, pine nuts, which I love. A pine nut raisins, take it or leave it. Pomegranate seeds, delightful barley mash, honeyed wine. There's the booze and any other kind of, like you said, Ben, bits and bobs of leftover kitchenry. You Might have lying around.

[Ben Bullen]

Exactly. Yeah. Depending on the ingredients that were available. And, you know, you've got a cool spidey sense here, Noel, about the etymology, because satur is obviously Latin and it means full or sated. So I think you got it.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Well, and that's funny because now it means we need to think a little bit about the etymology of saturated, because in that word, I feel the presence of the word satiated, because you are satiated by something that is calorically dense or saturated. Right.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, exactly. I think it's also related to. It also ultimately leads to the word satire.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Okay. Okay.

[Ben Bullen]

Anyway, this. So this is a weird thing to help you be strange at parties, this stuff. As we said, it wasn't particularly regarded as a delicacy, but it was dense, it took a long time to go bad, and it could feed soldiers on the move.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

More of a staple. Like, I believe I threw out the word hardtack earlier, which is a, you know, historical. Very, very dense and robust in terms of its, you know, ability to kind of last for a long time without getting gross. That could be stored in cool, dry places aboard ships, for example, and wasn't exactly fun to eat. But it's what might also even lead to modern versions of it, like Nutraloaf. Talk a little bit about Nutriloaf, Ben.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, yeah. Nutriloaf. Nol so Nutriloaf is a pretty controversial thing that is here in the States. It often shows up in the news because it was being fed to prisoners and it's just gross.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

But it is a similarly hardly packed, dense thing that the idea is how many calories can we pack in the smallest little package?

[Ben Bullen]

Right, yeah. And in the case of Nutriloaf, how can we do that while spending as little money as possible?

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Exactly right.

[Ben Bullen]

Exactly. You know, before we continue, you know, one other name for Nutra loaf. No. Is so it's meal loaf, which just grosses me out. Meal loaf.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Meal loaf. Like, how can we just absolutely break the idea of nutrition down to the studs and take any semblance of joy or pleasure out of it?

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, exactly. And take two of the weirdest words in the English language and put them together. I don't like the word loaf. I don't care for the word meal.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

How do you feel about malt o meal?

[Ben Bullen]

Malt o meal? What is that?

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Malt o meal is sort of like Cream of Wheat. It's another one of these wartime staple foods. I believe it's a brand name, but it is. Yeah. Malt o meal It's a hot cereal, more or less grown up baby food.

[Ben Bullen]

Okay, okay. Yeah. I'm not gonna be the biggest enthusiast of malt o'. Meal. Have you tried it?

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

I have and actually I remember growing up quite enjoying it. But it's one of those things too where it's all about what you put in it. You can sweeten it with honey, you can add bananas. Pablum is another word that gets thrown around. It is a very goopy mouth feel for sure. But it's still around and popular in certain parts of the country.

[Ben Bullen]

And we are well aware, folks, fellow etymology nerds, that the most unpopular word in the English language per several different surveys, is moist.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

I don't know if that was that an ooh of disgust or of tituation.

[Ben Bullen]

Tbd, tbd, tbd. We'll fix it in post. Thank you, Max. So we know that this stuff Satura is. It's like a proto fruitcake. It's not really a cake and it might not have had a ton of actual fruit, but the origins of what we call the modern fruitcake still date back pretty far the middle ages. And it's because dried fruits become more readily available before then. At this point, you know, you got fruit when it was in season or if you were rich or if you happen to live around an area where that fruit grew.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Drying and candying fruit could be argued was a form of technology, you know, because I mean, it's sort of a way of preserving things that normally would go bad, prolonging the harvest and making sure that you could store these things up for the, you know, the non growing seasons.

[Ben Bullen]

Exactly, yeah. And so as people had more access to dried fruit, folks across the European continent naturally started experimenting with new ways to use this ingredient in cooking and what they called fruited breads.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Not a cookie, Ben. Not a cookie. It's fruited bread. It's fruited bread or fruited cake, depending. But remember that, that slogan from Fig Newton, it's not a cookie, it's fruited cake.

[Ben Bullen]

It's fruity cake. That must be where this comes from. Noel, I think you're on fire today, man. You're nailing it. We also go to the Smithsonian, which confirms something you, Max and I were talk about a little bit off air, these regional variations. You see, not all fruitcakes are created equal. No.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

And I think I maybe mentioned off mic that I dig this, this Italian version. And a lot of it has, I like the density of it. I just don't like the chunky gummy teeth, sticky Dried fruit bits. And I really don't love a raisin. Although a really good oatmeal raisin cookie allows me to overlook the, you know, one of the main ingredients. But we're talking about something called pan pianoforte over there in Italy, which literally translates to strong bread. This dates back to the 13th century in Siena. It was influenced by something from Germany called stollen, which is a tapered loaf that's coated with melted butter and powdered sugar that is a bit more bread, like, in consistency and is super popular in Dresden and has been since the 1400s and actually has its own festival. There are versions of it as well come from the Caribbean islands as well as Britain's famous plum pudding, which is more of a wetted cake. You know, a wet fruit, a moist fruit cake that's soaked in rum for a very long time. I believe it's not cooked out, so you would. You could get intoxicated by eating enough plum pudding.

[Ben Bullen]

You know what? I bet you're right. I haven't personally tried this, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that there's people in European Christmas markets right now who accidentally got cake drunk.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

I love it.

[Ben Bullen]

They were cake drunk here. All right. But we know that some of these variations, to your little point, they came about because of personal preference, right? Like, oh, I want plums in my thing. Most of these variations, however, were probably just the result of available ingredients. Right at this point in history. You can't just pop over to Amazon or, or some international supermarket and pick up a pound of pecans if they happen to be on sale in your town. Tally ho. But if not, you just got to find something. The closest thing to pecans you can imagine.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

That's right. I think I stopped myself short. What I was saying is I really, I dig the pan a forte because it's a little less dense with these chunky fruits and oftentimes a little more of the marzipan kind of hazelnutty, almondy kind of flavor. And I really dig a dense piece of cake that has that vibe.

[Ben Bullen]

I love it when we do food episodes.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Oh, man, it's so fun. And it really is. Does get me in the holiday spirit because I hope it's really clear we're not nagging anybody's cake. Tastes like, if this is your thing, go, go with God, you know, to the, to the, to the fruitcake shopping. But it's interesting because there are certainly extreme versions of this stuff and then slightly more, you know, low key versions of fruitcake. That maybe would appeal to more of a general audience.

[Ben Bullen]

Right, exactly. And general audience is going to big part of our story here because we're trying to solve some mysteries. Right. One of the things we have to mention before we move on is that in some instances, fruitcake recipes came about because of Catholicism. Catholic regulations that banned butter also affected how you could make a fruitcake.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Put a dollar in the butter box.

[Ben Bullen]

Right, Exactly. Yeah.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Pound. What would you call it? A lira.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, there we go. It wasn't until 1490, in fact, that a guy who's been on the Show Earlier, Pope Innocent 8, finally allowed the good Catholics of Catholicism, I guess, to use butter. Yeah. Catholics at large. Which feels like an album name for someone.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Not bad. Yeah. You know what it also does, Modern fruitcake, I have to say, sounds a bit like an album. Would you say that at the time, Ben, this might have been, by some considered it a radical change?

[Ben Bullen]

Absolutely, dude, absolutely.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Like the Pope now, throwing raves and stuff. There's some people that maybe aren't digging that Pope's vibe. He's a little too much of a modern Pope.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah. That's what you get. You got a Chicago Pope now. So he's co signing raves in, what was it, Slovakia?

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

I think that's correct, Ben. He's done a couple of other kind of more chill Pope things. But, Ben, if I'm not mistaken, the initial area this was permitted in was Saxony, which is known for its butter. They're absolute butter masters over there in Saxony. If you are in France, a lot of times the best quality butter you'll get used in crepes and what have you or anything is going to come from Saxony. And if you've ever had it, Ben, I'm sure you have, it tastes almost more like a fine blue cheese than it does like a regular old butter. It really hits different.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah, agreed, man. It's. It's silken in some ways.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

It has just flavor. It's not just salt and cream. It has like, you know, really complex flavors. Much more like what you might find in a cheese.

[Ben Bullen]

Exactly, yeah. So this letter that the. The Pope sends off to the Saxons is known as the butter letter or the butter brief.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Who put that in the butter? I'm sorry? There's this Australian dude who does these. Like, I'm the guy who makes all those popular catchphrases. Who put that in the butter?

[Ben Bullen]

Just look him up.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

He's like a catchphrase guy. He's so funny. He'll do. He'll rattle off like, nine of them. And they're all ridiculous. And remember, who put that in the butter?

[Ben Bullen]

Who put that in the butter? That's straight seahorse teeth.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

That's AI dog in the butter.

[Ben Bullen]

So starting in the 16th century, we see another revolution in food technology. Sugar from these up and coming American colonies changes the game because they figure out, you know, through the right process, a high concentration of sugar can preserve fruit. And this created a glut of candied fruit.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Isn't that neat?

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Now they're more accessible, they're more affordable, and hopefully you like them.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Even if you just low cook some strawberries down, you sprinkle sugar on it, all of a sudden it becomes this, like, syrupy, gooey confection that then I believe if you'd like, maybe spread that onto a sheet or something and cook it at low temperature, you would start to be able to like, almost make, like, strawberry brittle.

[Ben Bullen]

It's also a very popular topping for different kinds of. I'll say it. Actual cakes. All right. Okay. Nobody, nobody get mad at us.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

This is as far as we're going to throw shade in this episode is what just happened just now.

[Ben Bullen]

That's it. That's the line. We've established boundary no further. We're stopping at. We're not crossing the fruitcake diss Rubicon. But we will tell you about how they became unpopular. Part of it is because they have been around for so long, they are so incredibly resilient. We did an episode a while back on the Antarctic fruitcake that's more than a century old. Remember that one?

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Absolutely. That was the episode where we found evidence, or scientists did. We didn't. Of a fruitcake that had lasted a century and was edible, more or less. I believe there was some talk that, like, I wouldn't eat it. Maybe it's sort of like finding those really, really old bottles of wine. This idea that you could probably drink it, it wouldn't kill you. Maybe the alcohol content has diminished over time. But I do remember somebody in talking about the study said, well, I wouldn't eat it, but you could. You could eat it, right?

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

To do is last for a year's time. So we can re gift it next Christmas.

[Ben Bullen]

Exactly. If you are the kind of person to practice re gifting, the fruitcake is perfect. You get one one Christmas, you just tuck it away in the back of the pantry and then boom, voila, you send it back the next year. And over time, this becomes kind of a wholesome prank. It becomes a tradition all its own.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Because, like, a White elephant thing. Right.

[Ben Bullen]

Just so because they have often they have alcohol content, they are shelf stable for a really long time without going bad. Kind of like an mre, right, but.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Oh, that's a really good analog. Ben. I wasn't thinking about the hardtack MREs. These are things that are meant to last in the field of battle or like, you know, out to sea or whatever it might be where you're not going to be able to re up on your supplies or you need to be able to sort of like, you know, squirrel them away.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Now this. This leads us to one of our big mysteries.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Where's the Christmas bet? Come in.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Yeah. How. How did the fruitcake become so strongly associated with Christmas?

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[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Everybody knows Shaq, but off camera, he's just a regular guy.

[OSA Patient/Spokesperson]

People never believe me when I say I'm just like them. I take out the trash, do dishes, and I struggle with moderate obstructive sleep apnea, or osa. And a lot of adults with obesity also strug with moderate to severe osa. You know, those scary breathing interruptions during sleep, the loud snoring, choking, and daytime fatigue. I knew I had to talk to my doctor. Don't sleep on the symptoms. Learn more@don'tsleeponosa.com this information is provided by.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Lilly A medicine company.

[Starbucks Announcer]

The holidays are back at Starbucks. So share the season with a peppermint mocha, Starbucks signature espresso, velvety mocha and cool peppermint notes topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate curls together is the best place to be at Starbucks.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

You know, it's funny when you think about it on its face, there isn't anything particularly Christmassy about it other than maybe that a lot of the fruits, if you do like a bisected cut, are. They tend to be red and green and. And. But that could just be a modern thing where. What are even the green bits that are in there? Ben, there ain't no fruit that's that color green. I don't know, like a gummy bear. Dude, what even are.

[Ben Bullen]

They are gummy. Like you said, they stick to your teeth. There's gotta be a dye job going on.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

That must Be it.

[Ben Bullen]

That must be it. No one's sure how fruitcake became so intimately tied with Christmas, but we know for a while they were a go to item for pretty much any special event. A wedding, holidays in general. This is the 18th and 19th century and the reason people loved having these or giving them to others is because they were a flex. They had expensive substances, fruits, liqueurs. It was celebrating, but it was also showing off, like ordering caviar at a fancy restaurant.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

I'm just going to drop this real quickly because it's been on my mind. The term fruitcake used as like an insult is also fun. This idea of someone being nuttier than a fruitcake reminds me of a thing you drop sometimes. Bend something being nuts and bananas. Nuts. Where does that even come from? This idea of someone being mentally unwell, being nuts. What about a nut? Make somebody make that connection? I've always wondered. But yeah, a fruitcake is often thrown around according to I'm just going to do it and be honest about it. The Google AI overview It is an insult used to call someone crazy, eccentric or insane. The term is a derogatory slang term for a person and can be offensive when used to mock or demean someone's mental state or unusual behavior. Offensiveness is one of the headlines here. The term can be considered offensive and its use is comparable to calling someone, quote, wrote off their rocker.

[Ben Bullen]

Good on you out of their gourd. Right?

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Google AI.

[Ben Bullen]

So out of their gourd.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

There you go.

[Ben Bullen]

We know that we can tackle part of the mysterious Christmas connection with a little bit of speculation. Okay, so just as regional variations of food pop up naturally over time, so do holiday traditions. Even today, Christmas celebrations in one part of the world, as you saw recently, can vary widely from the activities you're used to back home. I have Christmas envy for our British friends. You know they get put on little crowns.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Oh, the little cracker thingies. They call them Christmas crackers.

[Ben Bullen]

They're awesome.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Uh huh. I didn't know what that was until I dated briefly a woman whose father was or stepfather was Scottish and I went to a holiday meal over there and they did that. I'd never seen it before, had never heard of it even. And it's one of those, what is it, Bader Meinhof things where the moment you hear about something and you see it all throughout popular culture. But yeah, it's like a little bit gift that everyone at the table gets and you open it up, it's like a cylinder and then there are these little party poppers Inside. And then you wear these crowns.

[Ben Bullen]

There's a little. Maybe there's a little gift in the middle of the Christmas cracker, but it's all about the pop. You know, the. So, okay, we know that somewhere along the line, people who already were well acquainted with fruitcakes as a special occasion confection, they just start. They decided to start celebrating Christmas, which is, when you think about it, the biggest birthday in history.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

And also, when I gave you my heart, you gave it away, you monster. Oh, yeah.

[Ben Bullen]

Did you see that meme? Recently? Now that the season of Mariah Carey has returned, I saw something where people were pointing out. In her most famous song, Mariah Carey says, I don't want a lot for Christmas. And then later she says, all I want for Christmas is you, which is.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

All of you entirely every cell within your being, your soul, mind, body and soul. That's what Mariah wants. And she will accept nothing less.

[Ben Bullen]

Right. And then also inherently, she's implying that she doesn't think much of you.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Think very much of you. That did not occur to me, Ben. A little bit of a shade thrower there, that Mariah.

[Ben Bullen]

I mean, I didn't think of it either, but it's gonna haunt me now to realize that Mariah Carey may have just low key dissed millions of people every single year.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

That one's not my favorite. I could take or leave that one during the holidays mainly. Cause she hits those high notes and it kind of gets me in the. In the brain place. Like almost like a. Like I'm being crippled by a psychic ray or something like that. Feels like a rocks in my knees. It does a little bit. But I just will never not enjoy Last Christmas by whammy.

[Ben Bullen]

Last Christmas is great. It's a banger.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

It's a great tune.

[Ben Bullen]

You don't have to wait till Christmas.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

No, it's a very chill song. And some great sweaters in that music video. They're all at some sort of ski lodge just having a jolly old time. But it's also a sad song. Yeah, this Christmas song sounds like a sad Christmas song.

[Ben Bullen]

Save it for someone special. Also, is Long December by Counting Crows. Does that count as a Christmas song? Not really.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Die Hard counts as a Christmas movie. It does.

[Ben Bullen]

Okay. Okay, Noel. Yeah. All right.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

There's reason to believe. Yippee ki yo ki yay, Mother liquor.

[Ben Bullen]

Let's play these reindeer Games.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

All right. There is a movie called Reindeer Games, Ben. With, I want to say. Oh, gosh, it was around the time of the last Boy Scout, so I'm maybe conflating it with that, but I want to say that Awayans is in Reindeer Games.

[Ben Bullen]

Okay, let's see.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

We got to look. And it's definitely one of those Christmas set like action adventure spy thrillers. Reindeer Games, the movie. Oh, no, no, no. It's 2000. I'm sorry. I am thinking of the last boy scout and it stars Charlize Theron and Ben Affleck. That's an early Affleck, frankly.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, wow. Yeah, pre Batman Ben. So for Ty, just like Ben Affleck, fruitcakes were immensely popular, but mainly for people who could afford them. It reminds me of our earlier episode, Noel, on renting pineapples, which is still.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Weird flex, but okay.

[Ben Bullen]

Weird flex, but okay. It's still so strange. As we know the fruitcake's time in the culinary spotlight did not last forever. And this is where we get to our second mystery. What happened? What turned this once high class, opulent sweetie pants bread into a cultural laughingstock? I think it's okay. I got a theory, Noel. I think it's due. So I used to absolutely loathe Ranch. And for the most part, I still immensely. I'm going somewhere. And for the most part, I still immensely dislike it.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

But you did an episode, I believe, of stuff of genius about the history of ranch.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, that's right.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

As a concept. And I just wanted to add that on. When I was just in Europe, I was in the grocery store and I saw these little packets on the shelf that said American Ranch. And I just. I love how American this idea of Ranch is, but please continue.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, no, this is perfect. And I love the setup there, Noel, because what I realized is I had never had homemade ranch. I only had the dust. I'd only had the dust. Been forced to engage with Ranch through a mass produced condiment.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Engage with Ranch.

[Ben Bullen]

I know, right? Like it's a battle.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Are there rules of engagement with Ranch, Ben?

[Ben Bullen]

No. Ranch is an animal.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Ranch is a war criminal. Take it to the hay.

[Ben Bullen]

Ranch's Kissinger on a chicken wing. Cool. That's not gonna sound weird. Out of context.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Chef's Kissinger.

[Ben Bullen]

Chef's Kissinger. Perfect. Oh, nothing but net. So this is a similar problem that likely contributed to the downfall of fruitcake popularity. At the height of their fame, fruitcakes were made at home. If you're a baker, you have your own take on the recipe. You pour a lot of time and booze into crafting each one. And the issue is that everybody wants to keep up with the Joneses, but not everyone can Afford to buy the individual ingredients and a lot of people don't have the time to make this.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

That's interesting, Ben. I thought it was gonna go in a different direction where like we've talked about this idea of like the homemade gift being maligned in some ways. And at the time I'm certain that with the industrial revolution and people wanting to be considered like up on the times, you know, like, I wanna, I'm part of the future. Sign me up. The idea of homemade things might've taken a bit of a hit, but then over time you start to realize there's this backlash where it', no, actually homemade things are better.

[Ben Bullen]

That's a great point. Yeah, I never thought about it that way. And I completely agree. You sold me on this because we're smack dab in the industrial age at this point in time. Right. So store made, mass produced stuff is now being seen as a flex, being able to afford that kind of thing instead of being a person of lower means working at home. So I completely agree with you. We see automation, factories, mass production. This is a fundamental sea change in civilization. It affects pretty much everything. Fruitcakes are no exception. Businesses start churning out armies of mail order fruitcakes and they're not as good as the ones you would make at home.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

And they flooded the market and they really got to the point where it's like this again. There's no love behind it. It's just something that everybody has. They're all the same and they're all kind of gross.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Because the production technology is not fully formed yet.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Nor is the food science of it all. I mean, the preservation of things to doing it on that level of scale. Cause if you're making them at home, you're making them in small batches. Like our buddy Alex Williams and his George Washington eggnog. As we know, he distributes those every Christmas in little mason jars. And those would not last, you know, necessarily. They might curdle over time. If you don't drink them pretty quickly. But you're making something in mass produced quantities, they're gonna be a little drier and grosser and not quite as delectable as something that, you know, your meemaw made at home.

[Ben Bullen]

Exactly. Yeah. This was a well known quality issue. It's similar to how early airplane food wasn't super appetizing, still ain't great.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

But it's better.

[Ben Bullen]

You're right, it's better. Yeah. Progress is being made. The problem with airline food was due to constraints on ingredients and also people's unfamiliarity with how high altitudes can affect your sense of taste.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

That did not occur to me, Ben, and I'm sure it's come up between us before. And also pro tip that it came from you, Ben, credit where credit is always due, always go for the vegetarian option. It's just if you're worried whether you're a veg or not, you are much less likely to get ill if stick with the veg option. Also, to jump in here real quick, let's just all point out that Ben basically not these exact words, but basically just said, what's the deal with airlines bill? Am I right?

[Ben Bullen]

Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Oh, Max, while we got you here is Alex making his famous George Washington. What is it called? Nog.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Yeah, not that I know of. But I can ask him.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, let us know because I'll tell you, I think we all enjoyed it as an experience of living history, but that was a little too high test for me.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

But man, homeboy would also just like, I think. No, you know what it was, it was Covid era and there was a year where he put it in a ice chest on his front porch and had written everybody's names on their individual proportions and you could just go pick it up. It was such a nice thing to look forward to. You know, kudos to anyone that's doing homemade gifts. I think it's a wonderful, it's really.

[Ben Bullen]

An extra step at this point because the only true currency is time. So if you were lucky enough to receive a homemade gift that is not obviously meant to be a blatant insult.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Right.

[Ben Bullen]

They really appreciate it. I'm not talking about like a homemade card and you open it up and it says, hey you buddy. That would be funny though.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

I'd be into that. I'm not mad about it.

[Ben Bullen]

I think it's worth a chuckle. And just like you said, Max, with airplane food jokes, comedians love to talk smack about the humble fruitcake, especially the mass produced ones. We've got a little bit of media history. It was fascinating, I think, to all of us to learn that historians will often argue that Johnny Carson is the reason fruitcake stumbled from a flex to a joke. Because during his reign on the Tonight show, he would take repeated shots at fruitcakes. He even had this conspiracy theory where he claimed there was really only one fruitcake on the entire planet. And it just keeps getting passed around.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Why don't we play a little tiny clip of one of these moments from the tonight show from 1989, December 28, talking about the Fruitcake label lady. I'm going to talk about fruitcakes lady on last night. I think her name was Gladys Farick from Texas who made fruitcakes.

[Ben Bullen]

We have made a lot of jokes. Did you ever get a fruitcake for Christmas? Always.

[OSA Patient/Spokesperson]

I got one this Christmas.

[Ben Bullen]

Do you eat it?

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

No, that's the dam. That's the damn the same. Nobody eats them.

[Ben Bullen]

You keep it for a long time.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

You put it up in the closet.

[Ben Bullen]

Somewhere and then you wait till next.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Christmas and you to somebody else.

[Ben Bullen]

See, we're not blowing smoke here. This is only. And I love that you pulled that reference, Nolt. This is only one of the times that this guy talks trash.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Well, yeah, he even mentioned that this, like this is 1989. So this may well even been a clip from, you know, well into his anti fruitcake campaign.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, it's very strong stance on Johnny's side. And this bit continues on the Tonight show after Carson unfortunately passes away. There's a character called the fruitcake lady. She would appear on the program and do a routine about fruitcake opinions. Now, obviously the Tonight show was a cultural giant immensely popular during Carson's time there, during his tenure or his reign. But maybe historians are being a little too hard on the guy. He's not the only fruitcake character assassin. He also wasn't the first person in media to talk smack about it. Other TV shows were doing this.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Yeah, like the Donna Reed show or Father Knows Best. These shows that sort of portrayed the idyllic sort of home. I would love to even see a list of like classic fruitcake disses. Cause in my mind, I'm certain that like, I Love Lucy probably poke some fun at the fruitcake. It is almost, now that we think about it, a little cliche, this idea of making fun of the fruitcake around Christmas.

[Ben Bullen]

Right now we are to a meta point where we're making fun of making fun of fruitcakes. Right? And this is a, as you said, somewhat cliche media tradition in itself. And it dates back all the way to Warner Brothers cartoons from the early 20th century. We already mentioned that fruitcake got slangified in a hilarious, unhelpful way to its reputation. It's associated with an insult, but it's not all bad. The reputation of the fruitcake is not beyond repair, fellow ridiculous historians. We were interested to learn that it is the object of several types of celebrations, one of them being the great fruitcake toss of Manito Springs, Colorado.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Is that like a cake walker?

[Ben Bullen]

What's a cakewalka?

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

A kicka walker. You know, a CAA where you, you got the chairs and music circle and you, you, you, you land on the seat with the cake in it and then you gotta sit on it, you gotta smash it. No, that's not true. You get to take it home. But that, that was an old timey fair tradition or a thing. You'd maybe do it like a, you know, a neighborhood fun festival.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. My old sketch comedy group used to do a fundraising thing we called Cake Sit. And it was just that it was ultimately spoiler for the show, folks. It culminated in us sitting, not quite bare butt onto some cakes.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Smoshing, smoshing.

[Ben Bullen]

Yes, it was an interesting time, but it was for a good cause. The grapefruitcake toss is exactly what it sounds like. On the first Saturday of January, people gather in town, they bring their own fruitcakes or recycled fruitcakes and they just literally try to see who can toss it the farthest.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Sorry, smoshing is not what it's called. I just, I don't know why I made that up. Smosh is of course like a classic YouTube comedy troupe, which I quite enjoy. But I just looked it up and it's just called Cake sitting. But then there's this article that refers to it as wet and messy fetishes.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, wow.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Okay. No, no kink shaming here. I just wet and messy fetishism. They're just the mind conjures so much.

[Ben Bullen]

I don't. You know, Noel, I appreciate this because now it's making me question the motives and the enthusiasm of our director in that fundraiser.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

You know what? You're probably right, Ben. There's something to that.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh no else each their own. We guess the current record for fruitcake tossing is 1,420ft.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Was there a prize? Would you get like what happened? This was literally just chucking the fruitcake. Sort of like a punkin chunkin situation. But would you get something? Would you get to keep the fruitcake and would it probably survive the chuckin because it was so, you know, hearty and robust.

[Ben Bullen]

I hope it is exactly as you describe. I hope it is a meta level Sisyphean prize. I hope every victory is pyrrhic and that the ultimate prize is just more fruitcake prize.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

The ultimate prize, Ben, is the friends we made along the way.

[Ben Bullen]

There we go. If you are ever in this town in Colorado and it happens to be January, do check out the toss. It sounds like a great time. We hope you had a great time with us, folks.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Oh my gosh. Always. This was a delight and we do hope you're having a wonderful holiday season. Whatever you might celebrate, or just using it again as a way of just spending some time with your friends and family.

[Ben Bullen]

Absolutely. Big, big shout out to Our super producer, Mr. Max Williams, Alex Williams, who composed this track. And just because it's the holidays, a respectful shout out to our own Krampus, Jonathan Strickland, AKA the Quizzer.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Ah, the crampiest of Krampuses.

[Ben Bullen]

He's got some cramps.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

We love you, Baby J. We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Lowe's Advertiser]

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[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Everybody knows Shaq, but off camera, he's just a regular guy.

[OSA Patient/Spokesperson]

People never believe me when I say I'm just like them. I take out the trash, do dishes, and I struggle with moderate obstructive sleep apnea, or osa. And a lot of adults with obesity also struggle with moderate to severe osa. You know, those scary breathing interruptions during sleep, the loud snoring, choking and daytime fatigue. I knew I had to talk to my doctor. Don't sleep on the symptoms. Learn more@don'tsleeponosa.com this information is provided by.

[Noel Copenhagen Brown]

Lilly, A medicine company.

[Starbucks Announcer]

The holidays are back at Starbucks, so share the season with a Peppermint mocha, Starbucks signature Espresso, Velvety mocha and cool pepper Peppermint notes topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate curls together is the best place to be at Starbucks. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.