Complex Numbers

Nuttier than a...

"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  [13+]:
27. National Fruitcake Day
Write about your opinion of Fruitcake.
If you don't like them, you haven't had mine.

Counterargument: if I like it, it isn't actually fruitcake.

I don't know who first said it and I can't be arsed to look it up, but there's this idea that each family has only one fruitcake. Whoever gets it at Christmas shoves it in their freezer and regifts it to a different family member next Christmas, and they put it in their freezer, and the cycle continues until the heat death of the universe.

Now, I don't come from a fruitcake family, but I've had occasion to try other peoples' fruitcakes from time to time, and I just have one question:

Why? For the love of all that is right and pure in the world, WHY??!

Each of the various components of fruitcake is, usually anyway, just fine on its own. Put it together and you end up with the culinary equivalent of plaid and stripes, or socks with sandals.

I will grant that the person who wrote this prompt (it was Lilith of House Martell) probably makes some delicious cake. She might even call it "fruitcake." But this is like owning a Mercedes and calling it a Chevy.

I've heard the "If you think you don't like x, it's only because you haven't had mine" argument before and, all due respect, it is bullshit.

Take eggplant, for example. That's aubergine for my Brit friends. A typical conversation for me might go like this:

"I don't like eggplant."

"Oh, that's only because you haven't had mine."

*I try the eggplant dish*

"...I hate eggplant."

At some point, as I refuse to fake an allergy just to get me out of eating something, I started saying instead: "Eggplant is not actually food." This usually works. When it doesn't, I end up subjected to either a) a dish that is, objectively, made very well, but since it contains eggplant, I can't stand it; or b) a dish that so thoroughly covers up the disgusting taste and/or horrid texture of eggplant that one wonders why the dish isn't simply made without the offending material.

It is, on the other hand, absolutely true that there are some things that, if not cooked properly, just don't taste very good; but if made with skill and knowledge, can be delicious. Zucchini (that's courgette for my Brit friends) is one such foodstuff. I always thought I hated zucchini when I was a kid, but the truth was I hated the way my mother cooked the stuff.

Hell, the way my mom cooked, I was convinced that I didn't like chicken.

Still, there would be one way for me to change my mind about eggplant, or fruitcake for that matter: tell me I can't eat it. "I'm sorry, Mr. Waltz, but you have a rare illness. You'll be fine as long as you never eat fruitcake. But if you do, you'll end up in the emergency room or possibly die."

In such a scenario, all I'd be able to think of is how delicious fruitcake would be right about now.

That may sound farfetched, but that perfectly describes me with grapefruit when I started taking statins. Never cared for the stuff until the doctor told me I could never eat it again, at which point it was all I craved. This ebbed over time, but for a while there, grapefruit (I have no idea what Brits call it) might as well have been chocolate for all the cravings I got for it.

Still, there's little chance of that happening with fruitcake, so I think I'm safe on that front.