"Nutty as a fruitcake" (1935 in VILLAGE VOICE)

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   A "fruitcake" article is in this week's VILLAGE VOICE 
(www.villagevoice.com, then hit Counter Culture).  The article says that 
"nutty as a fruitcake" was coined in 1935.
   Now rush right to the RHHDAS H-O, go to "nutty" on page 698, and read 
this:
  
   1912-1914 in E. O'[Neill _Lost Plays_ 171: We sure are as nutty as a 
fruitcake or we wouldn't be here.
  
   For the benefit of the VILLAGE VOICE: Eugene O'Neill was a playwright from 
Greenwich Village.  The RANDOM HOUSE HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF SLANG H-O 
(1997) has been out for over five years now.  Where did you get this 
mis-information?  From Robert Hendrickson? John Mariani?  DOES ANYONE 
FACT-CHECK ANYMORE??
   If you ADS-Lers want to have real fun like I experience every day of my 
life, try writing a letter to the editor of the VILLAGE VOICE and get them to 
correct this.  Get treated like dirt!  It's fun!!!!
   (O.T.:  Sorry for that "simulacrum" typo in my last post.  It's one of my 
favorite "upscale" words.)
  
  
  
Counter Culture
by Robert Sietsema
A Short History of Fruitcake
November 20 - 26, 2002
Abbey of Gethsemani 
800-549-0912, 
<A HREF="http://www.monks.org/">www.monks.org</A> Claxton Bakery 
800-841-4211, 
<A HREF="http://www.claxtonfruitcake.com/">www.claxtonfruitcake.com</A> Collin Street Bakery 
800-292-7400, 
<A HREF="http://www.collinstreetbakery.com/">www.collinstreetbakery.com</A> Holy Cross Abbey 
<A HREF="http://www.monasteryfruitcake.org/">www.monasteryfruitcake.org</A> Takashimaya 
693 Fifth Avenue, 
212-350-0100

    
lame the fruitcake plague on the cheap sugar that arrived in Europe from the 
colonies in the 16th century. 
Some goon discovered that fruit could be preserved by soaking it in 
successively greater concentrations of sugar, intensifying color and flavor. 
Not only could native plums and cherries be conserved, but heretofore 
unavailable fruits were soon being imported in candied form from other parts 
of the world. Having so much sugar-laced fruit engendered the need to dispose 
of it in some way—thus the fruitcake. By the early 19th century, the typical 
recipe was heavy as lead with citrus peel, pineapples, plums, dates, pears, 
and cherries. Whether or not anyone actually enjoyed eating it, fruitcake 
persisted, finding fertile soil in the New World, especially in places where 
fresh fruit was difficult to come by. Nuts were introduced into the formula, 
probably because America's foremost fruitcake makers—Collin Street Bakery in 
Corsicana, Texas, and Claxton Bakery of Claxton, Georgia—were located in 
rural Southern communities with a surplus of cheap nuts; indeed, the 
Corsicana cake includes pecans. The expression "nutty as a fruitcake" was 
coined in 1935. 
(...)