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The Deliciously Ridiculous History of Fruitcakes · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: tuning in. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and that's beginning to look a lot like our super producer,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Max Williams.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Maxy Holidays, Max Holidays. Do you I am the Chris
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Kringle of this podcast?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Aren't I?
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: You kind of are? You're a bit of a Kringle.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Okay here, and I haven't gotting a little gray on
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: the beard.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: So okay, watch out, man. You can see both our faces,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: so folks, you may recognize the dulcet tones of none
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: other than my brother in arms, Noel Copenhagen Brown a man.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: I just came from the Land of Christmas, where they
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: invented Christmas, right, the Danish invented Christmas.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: It's like legos and Christmas.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: They love it there. It's so cool. I went to
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: the oldest gay bar in the world, which, if you
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: can imagine, was absolutely blown out with Christmas stuff. It's
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: this tiny little corner spot and I'm forgetting the name now,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: but just look up oldest gay bar in the world
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: and incredible Christmas decorations went to this place called Tivoli Gardens,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: which is like this old timy amusement park, absurd Christmas markets.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: So I'm very in the Christmas spirit, whether I want
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: to be or not.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Christmas, Oh thank you. Yeah. They they do
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  Speaker 1: call me, they do call me Ben Bullen. In this
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  Speaker 1: neck of the Global Woods, we are ourselves fans of Christmas,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: and if you are not from the United States, there's
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: something that we need to get out of the way
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  Speaker 1: super quickly. At the top. People here like Christmas in
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a way that is not necessarily always religious. It's just
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  Speaker 1: a fun time.
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  Speaker 2: I would say I fall into that for sure, And
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  Speaker 2: I would say it's hard to say because I didn't
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  Speaker 2: ask everybody in particular, but in Europe it certainly there's
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  Speaker 2: a religious component, but it also just is a vibe. Man,
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  Speaker 2: It's a lot of fun. It's a celebration of culture
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  Speaker 2: because even without the religious component, it's still got such
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  Speaker 2: a tradition and like a legacy of all of the
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  Speaker 2: various you know, songs and decorations on the gift and
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  Speaker 2: little Christmas markets, not to mention confections.
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  Speaker 1: Ah yes, yeah, here we go, folks. Another thing about
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the United States is that you've heard of fruitcake, and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: if you are like most Americans, you probably think of
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: it more as an old joke in holiday pop culture
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  Speaker 1: instead of a actual food.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Kind of the thing you think of as being a
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  Speaker 2: crappy gift or something you give to someone, you regift
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  Speaker 2: because someone's giving you this lump of you know, weird hard.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Attack and just kind of pass it on. But it's
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: not really a pay it forward kind of thing, isn't
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  Speaker 1: It's a gag gift, yeah, a little bit. Yeah, And
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I mean fruitcake sounds sort of bizarre. If you were
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: to explain it to an alien that landed on Earth
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and asked you what a fruitcake was, you would say, well,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: it's a dense candied fruit nuts whatever carbs we have
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  Speaker 1: lying round, and you know, a lot of booze, more
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: than a little booze.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's what Paul Hollywood might call a bit claggy,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: and what Prue might say is a bit too boozy,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: and Prue likes r booze.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And it's almost you know, I was thinking about this, guys.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: It's almost like something a stoner would dream up when
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: they're up late at night. They have the munchies and
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  Speaker 1: they only have weird stuff in the pantry.
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  Speaker 2: Just toss it in the mixer. Although if Stoner probably
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: wouldn't go to the trouble of baking a thing. But
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I said, I like where your head's that been. You're
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: definitely on the right track. It is a bit of
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: a kitchen sink type confection. Oh yeah, for sure.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: You know, kind of like how I think the three
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: of us have been there at some point in our lives.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of like improvising soup, you know what I mean.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: You got to make a soup and you're like, ah,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: what do we have here? What are they? Oh? How
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  Speaker 1: old are these radishes?
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  Speaker 2: Well, that's the best way place to use a questionable
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: radish man is a soup because it's disguised by all
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  Speaker 2: the broth.
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  Speaker 1: There we go and Noel. As we'll see in today's
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: holiday episode, fruitcake was not always as maligned as it
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: is in the modern day. Instead, once upon a time,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: for quite some time, it was enormously popular. It probably
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: saved a few lives, and people who like fruitcake, they
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: really like it. The fan base is like K pop
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  Speaker 1: law ferocious for sure. So why don't we set our
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: minds back to the days of the ancient Romans, who
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: you know, came up with a lot of things, and
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  Speaker 1: it turns out they also more or less came up
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  Speaker 1: with what we might think of as as something along
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  Speaker 1: the lines.
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  Speaker 2: Of a modern fruitcake. Although is there early a modern fruitcake?
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  Speaker 2: Isn't the idea of it that it is technically kind
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  Speaker 2: of an antiquated thing?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, So here we go, we're traveling back.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, so here we are.
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  Speaker 1: Here we are we made it so, as you were saying, Noel,
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  Speaker 1: fruitcake is a concept is so old and so ubiquitous
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  Speaker 1: that it's it's almost like the invention of the wheel
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  Speaker 1: or the taming of fire. It's impossible to figure out
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  Speaker 1: a specific moment where an individual came up with the idea.
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  Speaker 1: But like you said, the earliest thing that we could
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  Speaker 1: properly call fruitcake esque goes back to ancient Rome. They
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  Speaker 1: made something you could call it a confection. It was
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: called satura st you are a And if you heard
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  Speaker 1: the pause right before we said confection, that's because this
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  Speaker 1: thing is way less like a cake and way more
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  Speaker 1: like an energy bar.
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  Speaker 2: I'm I do that thing? I do I ask about
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: the etymology of a word with the absolute idea satura,
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  Speaker 2: I look at and immediately think saturated, which is the
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: vibe of a freaking chunk of fruitcake. It is so
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: densely packed with all this stuff you could call it
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  Speaker 2: somewhat saturated with ghak. Those things in this version include barley,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: pine nuts, which I love a pine nut, raisins particular,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: leave it, pomegranate seeds delightful, barley mash, honeyed wine, there's
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: the booze, and any other kind of like you said,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: ben bits and bobs of leftover kitchen ring you might
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: have line around.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly, Yeah, depending on the ingredients that we're available. And
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: you know, you've got a cool spidy sense here. Know
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  Speaker 1: about the etymology because satura is obviously Latin and it
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  Speaker 1: means full or sated. So I think you got it well.
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  Speaker 2: And that's funny because now it means we need to
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  Speaker 2: think a little bit about the etymology of saturated because
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: in that word, I feel the presence of the word satiated,
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  Speaker 2: because you are satiated by something that is calorically dense
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  Speaker 2: or saturated, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I think it's also related to it also, ultimately,
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  Speaker 1: leads to the word satire. Okay, okay, anyway, so this
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: is a weird thing to help you be stranger parties.
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  Speaker 1: This stuff, as we said, it wasn't particularly regarded as
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a delicacy, but it was dense, it took a long
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: time to go bad, and it can feed soldiers on the.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Move, more of a staple. Like I believe I have
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: threw out the word hard tax earlier, which is a
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  Speaker 2: you know, historical, very very dense and robust in terms
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  Speaker 2: of its you know, ability to kind of last for
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  Speaker 2: a long time without getting gross, that could be stored
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  Speaker 2: in cool, dry places aboard ships for example, sample and
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: wasn't exactly fun to eat, but it's what might also
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  Speaker 2: even led to modern versions of it like neutral loaf.
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  Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about neutral loaf, then oh yeah,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: neutral loaf. Nol So neutral loaf is a pretty controversial
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: thing that is here in the States. It often shows
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: up in the news because it was being fed to
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  Speaker 1: prisoners and it's just gross.
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  Speaker 2: It is a similarly hardly packed, dense thing that the
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  Speaker 2: idea is how many calories can we pack in the
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  Speaker 2: smallest little package, right.
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  Speaker 1: And in the case of neutral loaf, how can we
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  Speaker 1: do that while spending as little money as possible.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, right, exactly.
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  Speaker 1: You know, uh, before we continue, you know one other
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  Speaker 1: name for neutral loaf nol is. So it's meal loaf,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: which just grosses me out. Meal loaf, meal loaf. Like,
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  Speaker 1: how can we just absolutely break the idea nutrition down
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  Speaker 1: to the studs and take any semblance of joy or
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: pleasure out of it? Yeah, exactly, and take two of
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  Speaker 1: the weirdest words in the English language and put them together.
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  Speaker 1: I don't like the word loaf. I don't care for
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  Speaker 1: the word meal. How do you feel about maltomeal multomeal?
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  Speaker 1: What is that?
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  Speaker 2: Multomeal is sort of like a cream of wheat, another
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  Speaker 2: one of these wartime staple foods. I believe it's a
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: brand name, but it is. Yeah, malt o'meal. It's a
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: hot cereal, more or less grown up baby food.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, yeah, I'm not gonna be the biggest enthusiast
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of maltomeal. Have you tried it?
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  Speaker 2: I have, and actually I remember growing up quite enjoying it.
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  Speaker 2: But it's one of those things too, where it's all
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  Speaker 2: about what you put in it. You can sweeten it
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: with honey, kind of bananas y.
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  Speaker 1: Pablum is another word which you know, it is a
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  Speaker 1: very goofy you know mouthfeel, for sure, but it's still
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: around and popular in certain certain parts of the country.
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  Speaker 1: And we are well aware, our folks, fellow etymology nerds,
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  Speaker 1: that the most unpopular word in the English language per
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: several different surveys is moist.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if that was that an ooh of
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  Speaker 2: disgust or of titillationdbd, dbd.
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  Speaker 1: We'll fix it posts, thank you, Max. So we know
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  Speaker 1: that this stuff satura is it's like a proto fruit cake.
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  Speaker 1: It's not really a cake, and it might not have
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  Speaker 1: had a ton of actual fruit. But the origins of
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  Speaker 1: what we call the modern fruit cake still date back
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  Speaker 1: pretty far the Middle Ages, and it's because dried fruits
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  Speaker 1: become more readily available before then. At this point, you know,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: you got fruit when it was in season, or if
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: you were rich, or if you happen to live around
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: an area where that fruit grew.
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  Speaker 2: Drying and candying fruit could be argued it was a
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: form of technology, you know, because I mean it's sort
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  Speaker 2: of a way of preserving things that normally would go
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: bad prolonging the harvest and making sure that you could
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: store these things up for the you know, the non
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: growing seasons exactly.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And so as people had more access to dried fruit,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: folks across the European continent naturally started experimenting with new
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: ways to use this ingredient in cooking and what they
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: called fruited breads.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Not a cookie bed, it's not a cookie cook it's
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: fruited bread. It's fruited bread, fruited cake. Depending but remember
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: that that slogan from Fig Newton. It's not a cookie,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: it's fruited cake.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: It's fruity cake. That must be where this comes from, Nola.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I think you're on fire today, man, you're nailed it.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: We also go to the Smithsonian, which confirms something you.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Max and I were talking about a little bit off air,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: these regional very You see, not all fruitcakes are created equal.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: No, And I think I maybe mentioned off Mike that
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I dig this, this Italian version, and a lot of
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: it has. I like the density of it. I just
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: don't like the chunky, gummy teeth, sticky dried fruit bits.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: And I really don't love a raisin, although a really
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: good oatmeal raisin cookie allows me to overlook the one
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: of the main ingredients. But we're talking about something called
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: panofte over there in Italy, which literally translates to strong bread.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: This dates back to the thirteenth century in Siena. It
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: was influenced by something from Germany called stolen which is
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: a tapered loaf that's coated with melted butter and powdered
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: sugar that is a bit more bread like inconsistency and
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: is super popular in Dresden and has been since the
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: fourteen hundreds and actually has its own festival. There are
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: versions of it as well, comes from the Caribbean islands,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: as well as Britain's famous plumb pus, which is more
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: of a wetted cake, you know, a wet fruit a
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: moist fruit cake that's soaked in rum for a very
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: long time. I believe it's not cooked out, so you
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: would you could get intoxicated by eating enough plum.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Pudding, you know what. I bet you're right. I haven't
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: personally tried this, but it's not out of the realm
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: of possibility that there are some people in European Christmas
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: markets right now who accidentally got cake drunk. The cake
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: drunk here, all right, but we know that some of
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: these variations durally the point they came about because of
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: personal preference, right like, oh, I want plums my thing.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Most of these variations, however, were probably just the result
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: of available ingredients. Right at this point in history. You
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: can't just pop over to Amazon or some international supermarket
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and pick up a pound of pecans if they happen
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: to be on sale in your town, tally ho. But
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: if not, you just got to find something the closest
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: thing to pecans, you can imagine, that's right.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: I think I stopped myself short. What I was saying
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: is I really I dig the pana forte because it's
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: a little less dense with these chunky fruits and oftentimes
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: a little more of the marzipan kind of hazel nutty,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: almondy kind of flavor. And I really dig a dense
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: piece of cake that has that vibe.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I love it when we do food episodes.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Oh ma, it's so fun, and it really is does
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: get me an holiday spirit, because I hope it's really
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: clear we're not nagging anybody's cake tastes, like this is
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: your thing. Go with God, you know, to the to
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: the fruitcake shopping. But it's interesting because there are certainly
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: extreme versions of this stuff, and then slightly more, you know,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: low key versions of fruitcake that maybe would appeal to
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: more of a general audience.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Right exactly. General audience is going to be a big
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: part of our story here, because we're trying to solve
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: some mysteries. Right. One of the things we have to
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: mention before we move on is that in some instances,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: fruitcake recipes came about because of Catholicism. Catholic regulations that
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: band butter also affected how you could make a fruitcake.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Put a put a dollar in the butter box, right exactly, yeah, pound,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: what would you call it? Aleira?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go. It wasn't until fourteen ninety, in fact,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: that a guy who's been on the show earlier, Pope
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Innocent eight, finally allowed the good Catholics of Catholicism, I
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: guess you large, But yeah, Catholics at large, which feels
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: like an album name for someone bad.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what else does modern fruitcake? I have
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: to say it sounds a bit like an album would
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: would you say that? At the time, Ben, this might
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: have been by some considered it a radical.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Change, dude, Absolutely, like the Pope now throwing raves and stuff.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: There's some people that maybe aren't digging that pope's vibe.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: He's a little too much of a modern pope.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's what you get. You got a Chicago pope. Now,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: so he's co signing Raeves and what was it, Slovakia.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: I think that's correct, Ben. He also he's done a
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: couple of other kind of more chill pope things. But Ben,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: if I'm not mistaken, the initial area this was permitted
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: in was Saxony, which is known for its butter. They
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: are absolute butter masters over there in Saxony. If you
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: are in France, a lot of times the best quality
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: butter you'll get used in crapes and what have you,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: or anything is gonna come from Saxony. And if you've
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: ever had it, Ben, I'm sure you have. It tastes
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: almost more like a fine blue cheese than it does
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: like a regular old butter. It really hits different.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, agreed, man, It's silken in some ways.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: It has just flavor. It's not just salt and cream.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: It has like, you know, really complex flavors, much more
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: like what you might find in a cheese exactly.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So this letter that the the Pope sends off
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: to the Saxons is known as the butter letter or
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the butter brief?
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Who put that in the butder? I'm sorry, there's this
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Australian dude. He does these like I'm the guy who
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: makes all those popular catchphrases. Who put that in the butter?
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: It does?
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Look him? Look a catchphrase guy. He's so funny he'll
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: do He'll rattle off like nine of them, and they're
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: all ridiculous. And I always remember who put that in
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: the butter? Who put that in the butter? That's straight
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: seahorse teeth, that's an ai dog in the butter.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: So starting the sixteenth century, we see another revolution in
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: food technology. Sugar from these up and coming American colonies
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: changes the game because they figure out, you know, through
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the right process, a high concentration of sugar can preserve fruit.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: And this created a glut of candied fruit. Now, yeah,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: now they're more accessible, they're more affordable, and hopefully, like.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Even if you just low cook some strawberries down, you
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: sprinkle sugar on it, all of a sudden it becomes
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: this like syrupy, gooey confection that then I believe you'd
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: like maybe spread that onto a sheet or something and
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: cook it at a low time. Sure you would start
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: to be able to like almost make like strawberry brittle.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: It's also a very popular topping for different kinds of
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I'll say it actual cakes. All right, Okay, no, nobody
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: get bad at us.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: This is as far as we're going to throw shade
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: in this episode. Is what just happened just now.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: So that's it. That's the line. We've established the boundary.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: No further we're stopping at. We're not crossing the fruitcake
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: dis rubicon. But we will tell you about how they
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: became unpopular. Part of it is because they have been
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: around for so long. They are so incredibly resilient. We
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: did an episode a while back on the Antarctic fruitcake
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: that's more than a century old. Remember that one.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. That was an episode where we found evidence, or
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: scientists did we didn't of a fruitcake that had lasted
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: a century and was edible more or less. I believe
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: there was some talk to like I wouldn't need it.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's sort of like finding those really really old
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: bottles of wine, this idea that you could probably drink
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: it. It wouldn't kill you. Maybe maybe the alcohol content has
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: diminished over time. But I do remember somebody in talking
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: about the study said, well, I wouldn't need it, but
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: you could. You couldn't, right, Yeah, All we needed to
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: do is last for a year's time so we can
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: regift it next Christmas.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Exactly if you are the kind of person to practice
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: regifted the fruitcake is perfect. You get one one Christmas,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: you just tuck it away in the back of the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: pantry and then boomvoila. You send it back the next year,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and over time this becomes kind of a wholesome prank.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: It becomes a tradition all its own, because, like a
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: white elephant thing, just so because they have often they
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: have alcohol content, they are shelf stable for a really
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: long time without going bad. Kind of like an MRI.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Right, but oh that's a really good analog, Ben, I
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: wasn't thinking about the hard tack MREs. These are things
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: that are meant to last in the field of battle
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: or like you know, out to sea or whatever it
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: might be, where you're not going to be able to
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: re up on your supplies or you need to be
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: able to sort of like you know, squirrel them away.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now this this leads us to one of our
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: big mysteries.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: There's a Christmas bit coming in.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, How how did the fruitcake become so strongly
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: associated with Christmas?
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: You know, it's funny when you think about it. On
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: its face, there isn't anything particularly Christmasy about it, other
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: than maybe that a lot of the fruits, if you
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: do like a bisected cut are, they tend to be
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: red and green And but that could just be a
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: modern thing. Where what are even the green bits that
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: are in their bema? Ain't no fruit that's that color green?
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know, like a gummy bear. Dude, what even
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: are those?
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And they are gummy, like you said, they stick to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: your teeth. There's got to be a die job going on.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: That must be it.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: That must be it. No one sure how fruitcake became
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: so intimately tied with Christmas, but we know for a
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: while they were a go to item for pretty much
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: any special event, a wedding, holidays in general. This is
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the eighteenth and nineteenth century. And the reason people loved
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: having these or giving them to others is because they
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: were a flex They had expensive substances. Fruits lickol was
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: it was celebrating, but it was also showing off, like
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: ordering caviart a fancy restaurant.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: I'm just gonna drop this real quickly because it's been
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: on my mind. The term fruitcake, used as like an
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: insult is also fun. This idea of someone being nuttier
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: than a fruitcake reminds me of a thing you drop sometimes,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: something being nuts and bananas, the nuts. Where does that
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: even come from? This idea of someone being mentally unwell
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: being nuts? What about a nut makes somebody make that cannet?
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I've always wondered, But yeah, a fruitcake is often thrown around.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: According to I'm just gonna do it and be honest
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: about it the Google AI overview, it is an insult
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: used to call someone crazy, eccentric, or insane. The term
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: is a derogatory slang term for a person and can
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: be offensive when used to mock or demean someone's mental
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: state or unusual behavior. Offensiveness is one of the headlines here.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: The term can be considered offensive, and it's used as
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: comparable to calling someone quote off their rocker. Good on
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: you out of their AI, so we out of their God.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: We know that we can tackle part of the mysterious
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Christmas connection with a little bit of speculation. Okay, So,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: just as regional variations of food pop up naturally over time,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: suitable holiday traditions even today, Christmas celebrations in one part
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: of the world, as you saw recently, can vary widely
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: from the activities you're used to back home. I have
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Christmas envy for our British friends. You know, they get
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: put on the little crowns.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, the little cracker thing eckers awes uh huh. I
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: didn't know what that was until I dated briefly a
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: a woman whose father was or stepfather was Scottish, and
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: I went to a holiday meal over there and they
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: did that, and I've never seen him before, had never heard
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: of it even, And it's one of those what is
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: it better mine hoff things where the moment something that
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: you see it all throughout popular culture. But yeah, it's
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: like a little gift that everyone of the table gets
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: and you open it up. It's like a cylinder and
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: then there are these little party poppers inside and wear
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: these crowns.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: There's a little maybe there's a little gift in the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: middle of the Christmas cracker, but it's all about the
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: pop you know about the poduct. Yeah, so okay, we
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: know that somewhere along the line, people who already were
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: well acquainted with fruitcakes as a special occasion confection, they
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: just start they decided to start celebrating Christmas, which is,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: when you think about it, the biggest.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Birthday in history. And also when I gave you my heart,
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: you give it away?
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Monster?
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah? Did you see that? Me? Recently, now that
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the season of Mariah Carey has returned, I saw something
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: where people were pointing out. In her most famous song,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Mariah Carey says, I don't want a lot for Christmas,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: and then later she says, all I want for Christmas
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: is you, which.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Is all of you, entirely, every cell within your being,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: your soul, mind, body, and soul. That's what Mariah wants,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: and she will accept nothing less.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Right and also inherently she's implying that she doesn't think.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Much to you. That did not occur to me.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Ben.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit of a shade thrower there that Mariah.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't think of it either, but it's
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: gonna haunt me now to realize that Mariah Carey may
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: have just low key dissed millions of people every single year.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: That one's not my favorite. I could take her leave
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: that one during the holidays, mainly because she has the
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: hea and it kind of gets me in the in
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: the brain place like almost like a like like I'm
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: being crippled by a psychic ray or something like that. It
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: does a little bit, but I just will never not
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: enjoy Last Christmas by whim.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Last Christmas is great.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: It's a great tune. It's just actually wait till Christmas. No,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: it's a very chill song and some great sweaters. In
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: that music video, they're all at some sort of ski
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: lodge just having a jolly old time.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: But it's also a sad song. Yeah, this is like
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: a sad Christmas song. Save it for someone special. Also
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: is Long December by counting Cruise? Does that count as
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: a Christmas song? Not Real?
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Diehard counts as a Christmas movie?
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: It does?
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Be okay, okay, yeah, all right, there's a reason to
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: believe another liquor.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Let's play these radio games, all right.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: There is a movie called Reindeer Games Ben with I
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: want to say, oh gosh, it was around the time
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: of The Last Boy Scout, so I can maybe conflating
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: it with that, but I want to say that Awayan's
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: is in Reindeer Games. Okay, let's see. Well, we gotta look,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: and it's definitely one of those Christmas set like action adventure,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: spy thrillers, Reindeer Games, the movie Oh no, no, no,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: it's two thousand, I'm sorry. I am thinking of The
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Last Boy Scout and it stars Charlie's then and ben
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: a Fleck Fleck Frank Wow.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pre Batman ben So four time. Just like ben Affleck,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: fruitcakes were immensely popular, but mainly for people who could
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: afford them. It reminds me of our earlier episode no
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: on renting Pineapples, which is still weird flex but okay,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: weird flex, but okay, it's still so strange. As we know,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the fruitcakes time and the culinary spotlight did not last forever.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: And this is where we get to our second mystery.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: What happens? What turned this once high class, opulent, sweety
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: pants bread into a cultural laughing stock. I think it's okay,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I got it. I think it's due. So I used
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: to absolutely loathe Ranch and for the most part, I
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: still immensely I've going somewhere. For the most part, I
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: still immensely dislike it, but.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I did an episode I believe of stuff of genius
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: about the history of Ranch. Oh that's right, that's a concept.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And I just wanted to add in an inter up.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: I was when I was just in Europe. I was
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: in a grocery store and I saw these little packets
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: on the shelf that said American Ranch. I love how
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: american this idea of Ranch is? But please continue?
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Oh no, this is perfect. And I love the setup
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: there old because what I realized is I had never
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: had homemade ranch. I only had uh the dust. I'd
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: only had the dust, or I'd been forced to engage
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: with Ranch through like a mass produced condiments.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Engage with Ranch.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: I know, right, like it's a battle.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Are there rules of engagement with Ranch?
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Then? No, Ranch is an animal. Ranch is a take
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: it he Ranch's kissinger on a chicken wing. Cool, that's
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: not going to sound weird out of contact. Chef's kissinger,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: chef's kissinger perfect? Oh nothing but net So this is
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: a similar problem that likely contributed to the downfall of
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: fruitcake popularity. At the height of their fame, fruitcakes were
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: made at home. If you're a baker, you have your
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: own take on the recipe. You pour a lot of
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: time and booze into crafting each one, and the issue
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: is that everybody wants to keep up with the Joneses,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: but not everyone can afford to buy the individual ingredients,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: and a lot of people don't have the time to
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: make this.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: That's interesting, man, I thought it was going to go
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: in a different direction, where like we've talked about this
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: idea of like the homemade gift being maligned in some ways,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: and at the time, I'm certain with the industrial revolution
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: and people wanting to be considered like up on the times,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: you know, like I want to I'm part of the future,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Sign me up, the idea of homemade things might have
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: taken a bit of a hit, but then over time
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: you start to realize there this backlash where it's like, no, actually,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: homemade things are better.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: That's a great point. Yeah, I never thought about it
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: that way, and I completely agree you sold me on
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: this because we're smack dab in the industrial age at
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: this point in time, right, so, store made, mass produced
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: stuff is now being seen as a flex being able
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: to afford that kind of thing instead of being a
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: person of lower means working at home so I completely
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: agree with you. We see automation factories, mass production. This
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: is a fundamental sea change in civilization. It affects pretty
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: much everything. Fruitcakes are no exception. Businesses start churning out
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: armies of mail order fruitcakes and they're not as good
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: as the ones you would make.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: At home, and they flooded the market, and those really
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: got to the point where it's like this again, there's
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: no love behind it. It's just something that everybody has.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: They're all the same, and they're all kind of gross.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the production technology is not fully formed yet.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Nor is the food science of it, all the preservation
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: of things doing it on that level of scale, because
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: if you're making them at home, you're making them in
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: small batches, like our buddy Alex Williams and his George
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Washington eggnog as we know the he distributes does every
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Christmas and little Mason jars, and those would not last,
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: you know, necessarily, they might curdle over time if you
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: don't drink them pretty quickly. But you're making something in
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: mass produced quantities, they're gonna be a little drier and
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: grosser and not quite as delectable as something that you
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: know your Mema made it home exactly.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this was a well known quality issue. It's similar
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: to how early airplane food wasn't super appetizing.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Still ain't great, but it's better.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: You're better. Yeah, progress is being made. The problem with
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: airline food was due to constraints on ingredients and also
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: people's unfamiliarity with how high altitudes can your sense of taste.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: That did not occur to me then, and I'm sure
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: it's come up between us before. And also pro tip
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: that it came from you, Ben, credit where credit has
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: always due. Always go for the vegetarian option. It's just
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: if you're if you're worried whether you're a vege or not,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: you are much less likely to get ill. I stick
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: with the vege option.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Also, to jump in, he real quick, let's just all
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: point out of Ben basically not these exact words, but
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: basically just said, what's the deal with air.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you? Oh next, well we got you.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Here is Alex making his famous George Washington, Uh what
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: do nogg?
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Not that I know, but I can ask him.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let us know, because uh, I'll tell you. I
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: enjoy I think we all enjoyed it. As an experience
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: of living history. But that was a little too high
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: test for me. But Ben Homeboy would also just like
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I think, no, you know what it was.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: It was covid era, And there was a year where
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: he just put it in a ice chest on his
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: front porch and had written everybody's names on their individual
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: proportions and you could just go pick it up. It
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: was such a nice thing to look forward to. Yeah,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: you know, kudos to anyone that's doing homemade gifts. I
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: think it's a wonderful.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: It's really an extra step at this point because the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: only true currency is time. So if you were lucky
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: enough to receive a homemade gift that is not obviously
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: meant to be a blatant insult, they really appreciate it.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking about like a homemade car and you
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: open it up and it says, hey you buddy, that
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: would be funny thought of that.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not mad about it.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I think it's worth a chuckle. And just like you said, Max,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: with airplane food jokes, comedians love to talk smack about
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the humble fruitcake, especially the mass produced ones. We've got
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: a little bit of media history. It was fascinating, I
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: think to all of us to learn that. Historians will
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: often argue that Johnny Carson is the reason fruitcakes stumbled
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: from a flex to a joke, because during his reign
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: on The Tonight Show, he would take repeated shots and
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: fruitcakes even had this conspiracy theory where he claimed there
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: was really only one fruitcake on the entire planet, and
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: it just keeps getting past a rep.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Why don't we play a little tiny clip of one
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: of this moments from the Tonight Show from nineteen eighty
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: nine December twenty eighth, talking about the fruitcake Lady, I'm
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: going to talk about fruitcakes video on last night. I
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: think he name was Gladys Farik from Texas, who made fruitcakes.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: We have made a lot of jokes.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Did you ever get a fruitcake for Christmas?
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: I go on this Christmas? You eat it? No, that's
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: the dam that's the damn. Nobody eats. You keep it
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: for a long time, You put it up in the
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: closet somewhere, and then you wait on next Christmas and
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: you to somebody else.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: See, we're not blowing smoke here. This is only and
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I love that you pulled that reference. This is only
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: one of the times that this guy talks trash.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he even mentioned that this, like this is nineteen
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: eighty nine, so this may well even been a clip
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: from you know, well into his anti fruitcake campaign.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very strong stance on Johnny's side. And
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: this bit continues on The Tonight Show after Carson unfortunately
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: passes away. There's a character called the Fruitcake Lady. She
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: would appear on the program and do a routine about
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: fruitcake opinions. Now, obviously The Tonight Show was a cultural giant,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: immensely popular during Carson's time there, during his tenure or
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: his reign. But maybe historians are being a little too
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: hard on the guy. He's not the only fruitcake character assassin.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: He also wasn't the first person in media to talk
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: smack about it. Other TV shows were doing this.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like The Donna Reid Show or Father Knows Best,
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: these shows that sort of portrayed the idyllic sort of home.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: I would love to even see a list of like
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: classic fruitcake dishes, because in my mind I'm certain that
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: like I Love Lucy probably poking fun at the fruitcake.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: It is almost now that we think about it, a
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: little cliche. This idea of making fun of the of
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: the fruitcake around Christmas.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Right now, we're to a meta point where we're making
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: fun of making fun of fruitcakes. Right This is a,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: as you said, somewhat cliche media tradition in itself, and
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: it dates back all the way to Warner Brothers cartoons
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: from the early twentieth century. We already mentioned that fruitcake
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: got slangified in a hilarious, unhelpful way to its reputation.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: It's associated with an insult, but it's not all bad.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: The reputation of the fruitcake is not beyond repair. Fellow
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. We were interested to learn that it is
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the object of several types of celebrations, one of them
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: being the Great Fruitcake Toss of Manitose Springs, Colorado.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Is that like a keika waka?
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: What's a kekeo waka?
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: A kekeowaka? You know, a kekohaka where you you got
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: the chairs and circle and you land on the seat
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: with the cake in it, and then you gotta sit
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: on it, you gotta smash it, you get to take
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: it home. But that was an old timey fair tradition
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: or a thing. You'd maybe do it like a you know,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: a Neighborhood Fun Festival.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. My old sketch comedy group used
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: to do a fundraising thing we called cake sit, and
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: it was just that it was ultimately spoiler for the show. Folks.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: It culminated in us sitting not quite bare butt onto
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: some cakes, smashing, smashing. Yes, it was an interesting time,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: but it was for a good cause. The Great Fruitcake
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Toss is exactly what it sounds like. On the first
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Saturday of January, people gather in town. They bring their
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: own fruitcakes or recycled fruitcakes, and they just literally try
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: to see who can toss it the farthest.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Sorry, smashing is not what it's called. I just I
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: don't know why I made that up. Smashes of course,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: like a classic YouTube comedy troupe, which I quite enjoy
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: but I just looked it up and it's just called
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: cake sitting. But then there's this article that refers to
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: it as wet and messy fetishism.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, okayol.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: No no cake shaming here, I just wet and messy fetishism.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: They're just the mind conjureds so much.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: I don't you know. No, I appreciate this because now
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: it's making me question the motives and the enthusiasm of
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: our director in that in that fundraiser. You know what,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: You're probably right, then there's something. There's something to that,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Oh Bill, I'll teach there and we guess. The current
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: record for a fruitcake tossy is one four hundred and
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: twenty feet.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Was there a prize? Would you get? Like what happened?
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: This was literally just chucking the fruitcake sort of like
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: a punkin chunkin situation? But would you get something? Would
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: you get to keep the fruitcake? And would it probably
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: survive the chuck in because it was so you know,
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: hearty and robust.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I hope it is exactly as you describe. I hope
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: it is a meta level Sissyphian prize. I hope every
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: victory is pyrrhic and that the ultimate prize is just
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: more fruitcake prize.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: The ultimate prize, Ben is the friends we made along
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: the way.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: There a wee goo. If you were ever in this
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: town in Colorado and it happens to be January, do
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: check out the toss It sounds like a great time.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: We hope you had a great time with us folks.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Always this was a delay and we do.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Hope you're having a wonderful holiday season, whatever you might celebrate,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: or just using it again as a way of just
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: spending some time with your friends and family.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, big big shout out to our super producer mister
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Max Williams Alex Williams who composed this track, and just
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: because it's the holidays, a respectful shout out to our
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: own crampis, Jonathan Strickland aka the quiz.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Ampiest of Crampuses.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: He's got some cramps.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: We love you, baby, Jake. We'll see you next eight books.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.