Fruitcake Made People Joke Travel Christmas Received Cake

Several foods are associated with the Christmas holiday. Unfortunately, one traditional Christmas dessert has received a "bad name" (negative association; a bad reputation): the fruitcake.

A fruitcake is a cake made with "candied fruit" (fruit made into candy) or dried fruit, nuts, and "spices" (plants and vegetables used to flavor food), and, traditionally, is "soaked" (placed in liquid) in alcohol, which helps to "preserve it" (prevent it from going bad). Many fruitcakes made "commercially" (for sale by companies) don't use alcohol, however.

The fruitcake has become "the butt of jokes" (a subject to laugh about) because many people believe that fruitcakes just aren't very good, not very tasty. People often joke that no one wants to be given a fruitcake as a gift, so when you receive one, you try to "regift" (give someone a gift that you received as a gift) it to someone else. In fact, the famous comedian Johnny Carson once joked on his longtime talk show, the Tonight Show, that there is only one fruitcake in the world and it's passed from one family to another.

Another "running" (continuing) joke has to do with the items put into a fruitcake. Because dried or candied fruit are baked into the cake, and because fruitcakes are sometimes "stored" (kept unused) for a long time, those pieces of fruit may become hard and difficult to eat. Some people joke that it's easy to break a tooth while eating a fruitcake or that they discover strange and "mysterious" (unknown) pieces inside the cake that is no longer "identifiable" (known; easy to see what it is) after such a long time.