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You’ve probably heard the expression, “nutty as a fruitcake.” Or, you’ve heard the jokes about fruitcakes and how they’re indestructible, or unwanted by the people who receive them as holiday gifts. Such stale old wisecracks have circulated for years now, giving the fruitcake kind of a bad name that it doesn’t deserve. 

But this article wants to tell you the truth about fruitcake. It’s not old, and it’s not stale, and in the current day and age it’s making a big comeback. Fruitcakes aren’t just delicious treats with a proud tradition of holiday cheer. In recent years a new generation of health-conscious holiday goers are discovering them all over again, finding that the trusty old fruitcake given for the holidays is a nutritious source of vitamins and minerals all year long.

 

What’s the meaning of the term, “nutty as a fruitcake?” Where’d That Come From? 

 

You might already know that fruitcakes contain several different kinds of nuts, including hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds, and even coconuts. That’s a lot of nuts!

 

The fruitcake experienced its first heyday during the 1930s, a time when many people were struggling to make ends meet. The fruitcake became a popular dessert and gift, especially among middle-class families. These early fruitcakes were often packed tight with nuts, probably as a means of helping keep them fresh but also as a way to keep their costs down. 

 

The 1930s were also a decade of slang and jargon, with the new talking motion pictures constantly introducing new phrases into the American lexicon, or body of expressions. Sometime in the mid-1930s the expression “nutty as a fruitcake” came to describe someone “full of nuts,” or mentally unbalanced. With fruitcakes so popular during the holiday season, the expression caught on. Soon the expression was shortened, and “fruitcake” came to be synonymous with anyone who was a little less than sane.

 

Why so many jokes about fruitcakes being unwanted?

 

Because they’re so closely identified with the holidays, and because they’re easy to preserve and ship to other locations, fruitcakes were an early favorite choice for the practice that in modern times is known as “re-gifting.” People who were often strapped for cash at the end of the holiday season would re-gift a fruitcake they received as a last-minute gift for someone they’d forgotten in their gift shopping.

 

The fruitcake got another bad rap when a famous talk show host observed that there was only fruitcake in the world that was simply passed from family to family. In fact quite the opposite is true: millions of fruitcakes are shipped every holiday season, to all the corners of the world.