Okay, I booked it for Christmas
December 25, 2014
7:17 am
If you grow up in a Northern rural place you’ll inevitably be indoctrinated with a landslide of wilderness survival material from a very early age and fruitcake is something that seems to come up a lot as a must-have for your emergency kit.
Truth be told if it came to that I might try eating sand first.
When the sun implodes and a black hole swallows the universe restarting time and existence there will still be edible fruitcake in that cave.
…for a given value of edible.
And twinkies, if you can really call either thing edible to begin with.
I’d rather take my chances with the fruitcake.
That’s probably best.
I like twinkies
And I like proper fruitcake. Tastes like slightly sweet bread, but goes well with hot chocolate. Twinkies taste like cheap icing, cornbread, and slightly melted plastic.
Hey! Don’t associate delicious cornbread with that crap! It’s a cheap vanilla pastry not cornbread.
You tell ‘im yo.
Fruitcake is basically the Roundworld equivalent of Discworld’s Dwarf Bread.
Except even the best forged dwarf bread crumbles to pebbles after 400 years. Remember the Scone of Stone?
But yeah, you’d be surprised at how much you’ll find to eat when you have a pack full dwarf bread. “Well, it’s either this dead lizard or the bread; I never noticed how tasty lizards look!”
Either folks in the United States really don’t like fruitcake, or the dude who gave you the recipe was a prankster doucheag.
I’ve heard non-US fruitcake uses actual fruit. US stuff is dense and full of icky rubbery candied “fruit” stuff that tastes worse than those jellies your grandparents had. Not the good jellies, the ones that went bad 20 years ago and even then tasted like cough medicine.
I was gonna say we should go linch the ass that gave you that recipe, but he’s probably been dead for centuries… and based on your testimonies, some of his first creations may still remain intact.
Honestly, why do companies even make the stuff if everyone knows it’s horrible?
(late as all hell but I don’t care) The general consensus is that no one actually MAKES fruitcake anymore. What we have is a minimum of 50-year-old fruitcake that no one eats, and either people regift it over and over or some hobo fishes it out of the trash and returns it to the regifting cycle, and no one notices because no one eats the stuff.
Now I’m thinking of fruitcake made with black licorice instead of fruits…
That would make… A disturbing amount of sense, given the reactions.
Jerk, I was about to make that joke.
DID YOU KNOW…
Fruitcake is actually generated naturally by a rare species of slime mold attracted by disingenuous holiday cheer?! The slime mold grows around pieces of fruit, turning their fructose into a substance not unlike dried Gorilla Glue. This is an incidental part of its life cycle, as it derives no nutrition from the process, instead gaining nourishment from awkward holiday parties where you need to do breathing exercises in the bathroom while looking hard into your own eyes in the mirror.
In fact “fruitcake” is so hardy, thanks to the time of year, that if you were to cut it in half, it would actually become TWO fruitcakes.
I would like to award you with one internets for that ingenious explanation.
Like Crocodile Dundee said: “You can live on it, but it tastes like shit.”
Aww man, cant we just eat our dead like those rugby players that crashed in the Andes? Seriously, if you are at a point where you need your wilderness survival kit, being forced to subsist on fruitcake seems like it’d encourage you to just lay down and slip into oblivion.
i have tried other people’s fruit cake before…i understand where you’re coming from.
like it just tastes like the jammed all these random fruits into a bread mix, baked it and relabled it as fruit cake instead of what it truely is, and in the end it always tastes horrible.
but…. have you ever tried REAL fruitcake? and when i mean real fruitcake….jamaican fruitcake man. once you get a taste of that….you’ll never go back XD
but i’m serious….they use like raisins they soaked in wine and like real, fresh ingrediaents ( did i spell that right? no…i think i didn’t). it doesn’t taste even close to your every-day fruit cake.
You were close, it’s ingredients.
Ah, yeah. Real West Indian fruitcake is where it’s at. Both parents from Trinidad here, and the fruitcake I know tastes amazing. I always wondered why fruitcake had such a bad reputation.
Believe me, yer British fruitcake is also pretty darn delicious… our family recipe involves ‘dosing’ the cake with brandy every week for a month or so, after baking, and it’s full of lovely dried fruits, chopped nuts and juuust enough rich cake batter to hold it all together, then ideally wrapped in almond paste or topped with glazed pecans and almonds. If it was in my survival pack I’d not be at ALL interested in that lizard…
So, that’s a joke Americans seem to make ever so often… is American fruitcake just that bad? I’ve had various things that sort of look like it over here, and they were all delicious.
Yeah, it’s pretty dense and unchewable, with contradictory flavors that make it inedible.
Maybe if someone didn’t insist on putting plums, dates, tomatoes, and those other unpopular fruits into it, it might be edible.
That sounds absolutely horrid. I’ve only ever known fruitcake to only ever contain Sultanas, currants, raisins and cherries. No wonder you all think it’s so bad. I always thought it was because supermarket bought ones are always dry and hard.
You need to get proper ones with the fruit soaked in alcohol to stop it drying out the rest of the cake, then you cover the cake in rum-custard and it becomes one of the best desserts.
The stuff sold in stores is technically edible, but horrible. Real homemade fruitcake that follows a traditional recipe and is soaked in booze is awesome. Moist, delicious, and you get a nice buzz from eating a slice.
Yeah, real fruitcake should have enough booze in it that you shouldn’t drive after eating it. You soak the fruit for like, 3 days minimum in booze (partially to make them boozy and partially so that they are nice and hydrated and don’t dehydrate the rest of the cake).
Huh… I thought the joke is ‘Fruitcake = euphimism of gays’ (source: The Superhero Movie). As in, ‘Hey, are you a Fruitcake?’ ‘No, just staying single.’
It is also that. The euphemism comes from the attitude back when it started being used that both were highly undesirable. The attitude twards gays has changed a lot but not so much for fruitcake.
So basically fruitcake is loathed by most people ^^;; LOLs
Yes. And today, the use of the term “fruitcake” to specifically imply that someone is gay sounds like very 1920s-1930s language, or like something a character in a crime noir setting would say.
In that setting, it wouldn’t necessarily carry negative implications, but would instead be a discreet alternative to outright suggesting that someone was gay. And, because it also carried the connotation that the person in question was bizarre, eccentric, or mentally unstable, it was a very broad term (as, in those days, gay or otherwise “strange” individuals would often be treated like they were insane).
Nowadays, “fruitcake” generally refers to someone who is bizarre or eccentric, or has a mental disorder, but not to a gay person. It does still carry negative connotations when used to describe those with mental disorders, which is unfortunate.
Ah, i get it. Thanx for the info ^_^
Actually, the “eccentric” reference is based in the fact that fruitcakes have a lot of nuts; the saying is that someone is “as nutty as a fruitcake.” It is a pune, or a play on words.
Uh no dude, this has nothing at all to do with gay people. The joke is 700 year old department store fruitcake is exactly as edible and unappetizing as fresh department store fruitcake.
Ah, thanx for the info. Wow, i’m so old even that joke is ancient…
Using the term “fruitcake” is also for insane people…As in, “he’s nutty as a fruitcake.”
A slightly twisted version of that was used in one of the Star Trek movies, The Journey Home: “I heard he’s fruity as a nutcake.”
As far as the (in)edible kind of fruitcake goes, I’ve heard the rumor that there’s only ever been *one* fruitcake made over the course of human history; it just keeps getting passed from one family to another each year…
That’s nasty! O_O;
It’s like sponges, too! If you cut it in half, it multiplies!
In Britain it also meand crazy person.
I detest fruitcake and the addition of alcohol is one of the reasons. I can’t drink. Most alcohol makes me sick. I don’t get inebriated only nauseated and the alcohol in most fruitcakes makes it disgusting for me.
I’ve never heard anyone say they wanted fruitcake for Christmas so I wonder why some people give it as gifts. One of my aunts did that to me one Christmas. I stuck the nasty thing in the bottom of my refrigerator for two years (I figured it would take that long for her to forget she’d given me the awful object). Then two Christmases later I re-gifted it to her. Take that, you thoughtless hag!
…Dude, you’re ‘sick’… ^^;;
I come from a rare family that likes fruit cake and actually requests it. High quality fruitcake is delicious and can last years. They can actually last more than a century if properly cared for. Like others have mentioned they are a bit like dwarf bread.
“The oldest known fruitcake is approximately 130 years old and lives under glass in a Michigan home. It was baked by Fidelia Bates in preparation for a Thanksgiving meal in 1878, but she died right before the holiday and her family didn’t have the heart to eat it. So instead of throwing it out, they saved it and passed it down through the generations.”
You can make a pretty great fruitcake by soaking the fruit in high quality tea, and adding molasses to up the keepability… my Mum has recipes for fruit cakes which are suitable for nearly ALL combinations of dietary restrictions, apart from my brother-in-law who hates all fruit and vegetables except peas and pizza sauce. That’s a challenge… (he gets extra chocolate cake when he visits, usually with beetroot or zucchini in it to make it moister which he never notices).
You guys sound like master bakers.
Fruitcake is where we put fruit we hate eating because we dislike wasting food. It also makes good foundation material in home construction and is an effective threat if someone wakes up in bed with a fruitcake next to them (cheaper than horse heads and more effective).
What about a fruitcake IN a horse mask?
Cousin Tony just called. He need his chainsaw back, ASAP. :P
Memory serves, and it often doesn’t any more, the dense bar fruit cakes sold in stores are derived from military rations for the very reasons cited in the comic. . . Of course I think all the fruit cakes today were all made in the civil war and we are still eating the left overs. . .
I thought that fruitcake was like plum pudding originally in that it was basically just the delivery mechanism for the high-octane booze that it was soaked in before it got sissified.
Also, that pose that the two middle soldiers are in in the third panel reminds me of Madness: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/35/Madness_-_One_Step_Beyond.jpg
The difference between ska dancing and running from explosions is the location of the sound source.
Some time ago, or some time much later? Time traveller history is hard.
‘Some time ago’ could mean anything for time traveller. It goes forward or backward, or neither ^^;;
I guess the real question that needs to be asked is: “is the depicted incident uptime, downtime, or sidetime, relative to Jonesy’s present?”.
“Some Time Ago” on the Commander’s personal timeline, “Some Time In The Future” for the rest of us(as far as you know)
Timelost is correct, but I’m still just gonna say both. Or I could say most people think of time as a linear progression of cause to effect but it’s actually more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey…stuff
Thank you for your professional opinion, Doctor.
;)
Technobabble ahoy!
And he can talk in technobabble without blinking…
You’re quite welcome, thank you for understanding the reference, I was a bit worried no one would get it. =P
Wilderness survival kits made up exclusively of carbs – of which mostly sugar- and hardly any protein? The commander better stock a couple tubs of protein powder with his stash if he doesn’t want to lose all his muscle mass.
Maybe some water too? Kinda useful too, to wash down that fruitcake. And of course to not die of dehydration.
The key is that the survival stash has to be compact. You could get a bunch of calories from a relatively small stash of fruitcake.
I’m personally wondering how long peanut butter would keep. I know it lasts a fairly long time, and is rich in protein. And I’d imagine instead of water, his kit would include ways to obtain and purify water (i.e., like some sort of solar still kit, and iodine tablets).
When I was a kid, my school’s earthquake survival kit included nutella.
Every now and then I buy a jar for emergency supplies, but whenever I think there might be a real emergency, it’s gone for some reason… <___<
I am like 53% certain that there is protein of some variety in fruitcake. What little I’ve had could only be described as “glutenous”.
That’s kinda what you need. Fat is the best survival mechanism available. This is why we find such foods to taste so damned good. Marathon runners carb load for a reason. Protein is a good repair energy source, but it’s hardly the densest, which is what you’re looking for in base survival. Secondary is nutrient variety, which, despite taste, fruitcake has in spades.
Best survival gear? A ton of carbs and some multi vitamins. Protein is only necessary if you think whatever it is will last a long time.
Protein is necessary if you want to keep your gains. My point wasn’t that Commander couldn’t survive. My point was that if he has to resort to these sort of stashes often, his muscles would atrophy into nothingness.
Do you even lift?
He can regain the mass by rowing; most ship crews have a fish heavy diet.
I found one recipe for fruitcake that I liked. It was from an odd specialty cookbook of miniature desserts, so it made 2 mini-bundt fruitcakes.
I think the key was that the only fruit in it was dried figs (none of that scary candied shit), it was soaked in Frangelico (I used Tuaca, which also worked well), and it had chocolate, which is always a beautiful thing.
I actually really like fruitcake. The one I make, anyway. It’s basically candied fruit and raisins held together by a dark spicy cake batter and basted for a few weeks with brandy, and it’s fricking good, assuming you like raisins. Maybe it’s just the commercial ones that taste like ass, though I’ve had a couple of those and didn’t notice anything that offensive about them. *shrugs*
I knew I couldn’t be the only one who didn’t understand the hate on fruitcake.
Holiday fruitcakes in the US are usually store bought and horrific. They’re very obviously stuck to the cellophane in the packaging with copious amounts of corn syrup (since you’d have to check ID if it had real brandy in it), but actually taking a bite out of one leaves a dry gritty feeling in your mouth. The “fruit” in it is either candied or not actually fruit, usually gummy bits. It’s full of clashing, offensive astringency that only the terminally aguesic could like.
Thanks for all the comics so far! It’s always nice to see the Commander thinking about how to take care of his charges.
I’d actually like to try fruitcake at some point, but I feel like if I bought a whole one, I’d regret it after one bite, and feel bad throwing out a whole cake.
He’s still rockin’ the beard?
But Movember’s over!
Who do you think plays Santa for his kids when Santa is laid up with butt full of buckshot?
But his beard is not long enough like Santa’s, dammit! >_<
Give him a few hours.
He’s rockin’ the beard because he hasn’t had time for his mid-afternoon chops-wrangling yet.
See for yourself: http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/this-is-more-of-a-psa-than-a-joke-really
Fruitcake is good, dammit.
+1
Fruitcake? hmm, is that how the commander lost his tooth?
fruit cake my be edible but i have never had a good one. maybe rock is on to something by aging it a few centuries before trying to eat it.
Here in Indonesia, there is some kind of fruit cake. & also real fruit cake with American recipe. It tasted good, so i’m not quite understand why fruit cakes got ‘bad reputation’ in here.
Bad cooks, who through every fruit imaginable in there just to get rid of it, and nothing to moisten it. Imagine trying to chew that and then you tell me why it has a bad reputation.
Ah, i get it ^^;;
That’s part of my reasoning, too! I figure fruitcake was created by a drunken cook who lurched around the kitchen throwing all the little bits of alcohol that was left in the bottles into the batter along with bits and pieces of fruit. However, your explanation makes a lot more sense.
Oddly enough, I grew up in a region where they teach you the importance of carrying a winter survival kit in your car just in case you get stranded on the side of the road during a blizzard, but I’ve never once heard of fruitcake being a survival food at all.
Christmas update? More than expected! Thanks for the extra work and fun comics. :)
i love fruitcake. :(
We can start a club.
I doubt it’s the North American cheap store-bought fruitcake that you love, though.
Merry Xmas for those who celebrate (not me, because i’m a Muslim. Lols) ^_^ Have a nice holiday.
I wonder… what exactly does a “some time ago” caption mean for a professional time traveler?
The first rule of successful time travel is not to think about how it works.
Dammit Jonesy what did I tell ya?!
Uh. The fruitcakes in the cave aren’t the ones he’s purchasing in the present, right?
Of course they are.
umm i thought he was out of the military for now because he was in the office?
Think we could get that archive updated… eventually? =p
Wish you’d dropped the “some time ago”. I first read the comic without reading that and thought you were being ambiguous on whether the cutaway was taking place in the relative past or future and I totally dug the idea.
If the crew is together in camo it happened when they were younger, when they got older they got fancy titles and goofy outfits and split apart to run their own units.
It was “some time ago” from the Commander’s perspective.
Given that he’s a frequent time traveller whose time travel method runs on the level of ambient bullshit in his universe, it’s anyone’s guess how it relates to everyone else’s perspective. I prefer to just say “fair ’nuff” and not ponder the issue.
Remember, first rule of time travel in the TPIMverse is that you don’t think about it too hard. Bad things happen when you do. http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/this-is-probably-the-fastest-ive-cranked-out-this-many-panels
I’m somewhat concerned about the quality of North American Christmas cake now… All the stuff I’ve made and eaten has been pretty good!
Fruitcakes: emergency rations, paperweights, improvised weapons… what CAN’T they do?!
Well, besides taste good.
I’m fairly certain they can’t fix the teeth they knock out.
They might serve as raw materials to craft a temporary prosthetic?
Yeah, no. Bad plan.
Well played.
Wait, so not all future space marines follow the Marlon Brando religion? I kinda assumed that…
Wait, huh?
C48 exclaimed, “Jesus Christ!”
Pretty sure Rock Lobster’s said that before too, though. It’s so prevalent that people like me who don’t follow any particular religion default to it all the time, so she could still follow the way of Marlon Brando.
On which note, could someone who’s been alive longer or is othwrwise in a position to hazard a guess explain the connection between the Captain’s designation ‘C48’ and nickname ‘Angel?’
Her nickname might not have anything to do with her serial number, maybe she’s just angelic.
C4 = ‘CA’ in l33t speak; ‘8’ = Ate; CA-ATE = KATE, Kate Jackson, actress who played one of Charlie’s Angels. Badda boom badda bing.
Even if it wasn’t originally intended, you still get credit for finding the reference.
….I LIKE fruitcake.
Oh, looks like I’m a bit late to the “I love fruitcake” party.
Habanero fruitcake is pretty good. All other fruitcakes must die.
Take your fruit cake, place in a bowl. Add a cupful or so to taste of either brandy or rum. Allow it to be absorbed. It will become moist and rather tasty. That was how it was served in the colonial days. To add bit of modern, serve with whipped cream.
Too many today try to eat it as is. That is like trying to eat cornbread that hasn’t been baked yet.
A two comics in one week. It really is a Christmas miracle!
. . . I’ll see myself out.
…is is wrong that I don’t care about what the regular cast is doing and want to see the outcome of Clanboss Goathucker hucking enchanted rams at dragons?
No it’s %100 right.
Wait, that’s not the entire point of this webcomic?!
I’m waiting for Jared to show up.
ya want the kind with plenty of whiskey in it!
Claxton fruit cakes are a reasonable baseline.
Does the guy with the dew rag have a goatee in the third panel and then show up clean shaven in the fourth panel?
That’s why they are made in block shapes – fruitcake can also be used as building material. Pile enough of them up, they work like sandbags. Stack enough of them up, you can make a wall/shelter against the harsh elements. Tie a few around the ankles of your enemies and throw them off a pier, it will weigh them down enough to drown. Heck, redneck fruitcake is used in place of cinderblocks to prop up their cars on their uncut lawns.
I like fruitcake.
was given some fruitcake, it was almost a pudding there was soooo much booze in it. when i bit into it’s delishious potency it peeled the skin off of the roof of my mouth. it nearly put me into a homer stupor like when he eats too many doughnuts. it was fantastic!
Are those the same cakes? Is he going to stash them in a cave for the Cyber-Nazi war, and also the bombs that happen 700 years later?
Entenmann’s made a pretty tasty fruitcake some years ago that didn’t require rum to make it edible though that might make it better.
As slang goes, “fruitcake” was used in my youth in my part of the world to mean “crazy”.
Well I’m never eating American fruitcake.
My mother’s Christmas cake, on the other hand, is a different story. I could eat that whole damn thing singlehandedly, if I managed to fight off my father long enough to do so.
I am reminded of what Jim Gaffigan had to say about the subject.
“You got fruit, which is good. Cake which is great. Fruitcake, nasty crap.”
Well… it IS GORP in brick form…
Man, I have NEVER heard anything good said about Fruitcake. It’s gotten to a point where I can’t tell if I’m really fortunate or unfortunate to not have this in my country but my curiosity is still killing me. I want to try this at least once before my life is over.
It’s really not all that bar, BM03. It’s more that it is a traditional gag about it being an unwanted gift. Sort of like how banana peels aren’t extraordinary slippery (certainly not moreso than any other fruit) but are traditionally used in gags involving a fall.
But… … …I LIKE storebought fruitcake… … … I also grew up eating army rations…and don’t like the taste of most spices… so my sense of taste may be inverted.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing but fruitcake remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
A trail of crumbs and nuts stretch far away
Ah Fruitcake, I find it funny it was a PLot DEvice in VATTA’s WAR SERIES.
The Commander know the deal. I have several stashed in the freezer for ultras and the like. Everyone thinks I’m nuts, but 195 calories per half serving? Perfect for long runs.
Hmmm. This must be one of those things where Americans use the same word as the rest of us to describe something that is completely different from what the word originally refered to- like robins and badgers- as fruitcake where I come from is very tasty indeed, though similarly immortal.
Wait a sec. It say “700 years ago”, does mean Commander Badass is older than humans? Or they just use time travel?
Its already been well established that Rock was a member of a time travelling group of commandos.
My aunt makes an awesome fruitcake. Dense, yet toothsome, rich and moist.
My grandpa used to send us a Collin Street Bakery fruitcake every year and my mom had to stay vigilant or I’d eat the entire thing myself. It was years before I ran into the ‘fruitcake is gross’ trope.
Btw: CSB fruitcake https://www.collinstreet.com/15-reg-deluxe-fruitcake.jpg
(Some of the hits in an ‘American Fruitcake’ search do look like bread, so I wonder if that’s part of it; the dense type have always tasted good to me.)
It finally occurs to me, fruitcake is the Desolation Jones of food: So utterly destroyed that nothing in the world can hurt it anymore.
I want to say, “Suddenly my life makes sense,” but no, all those weddings I went to as a kid still make no sense. At least, the wedding cake doesn’t. I mean, wedding cake. Like that! WWWWWHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy??????????????
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/14/543389016/photos-almost-edible-106-year-old-fruitcake-found-in-antarctica
Life imitates manly art.