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Fruitcake business undeterred by condescending
jokes
By Bill Whitaker
The recent cold weather has done more than prod leaves off
area trees.
Last weekend's cold front also reminded several hundred folks
around Abilene it's again time to order fruitcakes, a passion
for some holiday revelers, yet to others absolutely the most despised
culinary creation since Creation.
"We have one lady who's a teacher who just hates fruitcakes,"
McKay's Bakery co-owner Dianne Greene said as the fruitcake season
got under way. "She got one from a student one time and,
well, she just passed it along to someone else.
"But she also told us that if anyone ever ordered another
fruitcake sent to her, we should change the order to something
else -- anything else!"
So it goes in the whacky world of fruitcakes.
McKay's Bakery used to conduct a successful fruitcake business
nationwide through the pages of the Wall Street Journal and Texas
Monthly. The past couple of years they have scaled back national
operations to serve their increased local business.
Dianne says they still make the same number of fruitcakes each
year -- between 300 and 500 -- but that now most of their customers
are Abilenians.
"That's the kind of problem we like, though," she
said.
MARCH OF THE FRUITCAKES
Harvey Bourland, a former Abilenian now based in Atlanta, did
his bit to spur fruitcake sales when he mounted a fruitcakes-for-the-needy
campaign several years ago. Basically, this involved people mailing
him unwanted fruitcakes from around the U.S.
Supposedly, he gave them to people in need -- a gesture that
might well get him shot in some quarters. Still, his campaign
has garnered him headlines in and outside Georgia every year.
Needless to say, the fruitcake has evolved into a tremendous
cultural joke in America -- the gift that, to hear late-night
comedians, skeptical columnists and members of my own family,
no one really wants.
Certainly it's a comedown for the once noble concoction. Egyptians
were the ones who supposedly invented the lowly fruitcake and
even cherished it as an essential food for the afterlife. God
knows, thieves might plunder the pharaohs' royal tombs for gold
and jewels but never their mummified fruitcakes.
I understand Etruscans enjoyed a version of the fruitcake in
500 B.C. and the Greeks honored the fruitcake -- if, indeed, you
can really honor a fruitcake -- as the "food of the gods."
This, of course, may well have contributed to the fall of the
Greeks from global prominence.
Harvey Bourland, who always struck me as a man who knew his
fruitcakes, spoke highly for a time of the famous Collin Street
Bakery fruitcakes manufactured in Corsicana. Time has shown his
faith was well-placed.
For its 100th birthday last year, Collin Street Bakery received
an on-air salute by Willard Scott on "The Today Show."
Its fruitcakes are reportedly purchased by former Texas Rangers
pitcher Nolan Ryan, actor Robert Urich, supermodel Vanna White,
Princess Caroline of Monaco, aging cowboy star Gene Autry, character
actor Joe Don Baker and Mrs. Ray Milland.
Most unusual client: The Coca-Cola Bottling Company in Reykjavik,
Iceland.
FRUITCAKES FOREVER
This all reminds me of how the Whitakers handled fruitcakes.
Except for my grandmother, all my kinfolks hate fruitcakes. Consequently,
the same fruitcake has been sent from one Whitaker family to the
next, the understanding always being that it should just be sent
out again.
This embarrassed my grandmother mightily.
"Frankly, I still hear a lot of jokes about fruitcakes,"
Dianne Green told me the other day. "People will say, 'Oh,
here comes the fruitcake lady.' And, of course, I try not to take
that personally, but then we all know what that means in everyday,
ordinary conversation!"
Yes, fruitcakes may be a joke to some, but others do crave
the stuff.
"You know, there are people who actually like these things,"
Dianne said. "They really eat 'em!"
Bill Whitaker, who wonders if fruitcakes found in the pyramids
really taste much different than those sold today, can be reached
at 676-6732.
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Copyright ©1996 or
1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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