Man looks for gift fruitcake from 1962 - and finds it

http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_st...4182006_01.asp

(Article has picture of man holding 44-year old fruitcake)

By LINDA McALPINE - GM Today Staff


April 19, 2006

WAUKESHA - Lance Nesta of Waukesha has never much cared for the taste
of fruitcake, so he isn't exactly sure what to do with the one his
two aunts sent him in November 1962.

That's right, 1962.

And he still has it, after more than four decades.

"I was in the Army in 1962 and stationed in Alaska when my Mom told me
that my two aunts were sending me a fruitcake for Christmas," Nesta
said. "She knew I hated the damn things, but she said she didn't have
the heart to tell my aunts, who had already mailed it."

Sure enough, a small square box arrived, wrapped in brown paper and
bearing a bright red "FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE" sticker.

Inside, a white box labeled "Gimbels Epicure Shop, Milwaukee" contained
a sky blue, round tin with a print of flowers on it and the words "Old
Fashioned Fruitcake."

"Now it's just old," Nesta said with a laugh, hoisting the
three-pound tin in his hand.

"I opened it up and didn't know what to do with it," Nesta recalled
of that November day in 1962. "I sure wasn't going to eat it, and I
liked my fellow soldiers too much to share it with them."

Nesta said that as best as he can remember, the ubiquitous Christmas
cake got packed up with the rest of his personal belongings and sent
home to Waukesha when he left the military a couple of years later.

Not before he - and the fruitcake - weathered the 1964 Alaskan
earthquake, though.

"I doubt it even moved during the quake," he chuckled.

Recently, he rediscovered the fruitcake, still in its white box,
enshrouded with its brown paper wrapping with $1.21 in postage marked
on it, in the attic of his mother's house.

"I knew it had to be up there somewhere. I think I heard it crawling
around," he said of the fruitcake, which, through Nesta's zany sense
of humor, has taken on a life and a persona of its own.

When he again found it, Nesta couldn't resist opening it to see how
the fruitcake has faired through the last four-plus decades - which
have spanned nine presidencies.

"I was amazed that it hadn't changed at all," he said, adding that he
quickly put the lid back on, lest it try to bite him or spread some
spores into the air previously unknown to mankind.

While looking at the white box the tin came in, Nesta made a shocking
discovery Monday.

Listed on the side of the box were the ingredients, which included
"fancy bleached and natural seedless raisins, candied citrus fruit
peels, glace pineapples and cherries, fancy nutmeats, pitted dates,
flour, sugar, eggs, rum and brandy."

"Oh wow," he exclaimed. "If I had known back then that it had rum and
brandy in it, I would have eaten it."

Rusty wrote:

> Man looks for gift fruitcake from 1962 - and finds it
>
> http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_st...4182006_01.asp
>
> (Article has picture of man holding 44-year old fruitcake)
>
> By LINDA McALPINE - GM Today Staff
>
>
> April 19, 2006
>
> WAUKESHA - Lance Nesta of Waukesha has never much cared for the taste
> of fruitcake, so he isn't exactly sure what to do with the one his
> two aunts sent him in November 1962.
>
> That's right, 1962.
>
> And he still has it, after more than four decades.
>
> "I was in the Army in 1962 and stationed in Alaska when my Mom told me
> that my two aunts were sending me a fruitcake for Christmas," Nesta
> said. "She knew I hated the damn things, but she said she didn't have
> the heart to tell my aunts, who had already mailed it."
>
> Sure enough, a small square box arrived, wrapped in brown paper and
> bearing a bright red "FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE" sticker.
>
> Inside, a white box labeled "Gimbels Epicure Shop, Milwaukee" contained
> a sky blue, round tin with a print of flowers on it and the words "Old
> Fashioned Fruitcake."
>
> "Now it's just old," Nesta said with a laugh, hoisting the
> three-pound tin in his hand.
>
> "I opened it up and didn't know what to do with it," Nesta recalled
> of that November day in 1962. "I sure wasn't going to eat it, and I
> liked my fellow soldiers too much to share it with them."
>
> Nesta said that as best as he can remember, the ubiquitous Christmas
> cake got packed up with the rest of his personal belongings and sent
> home to Waukesha when he left the military a couple of years later.
>
> Not before he - and the fruitcake - weathered the 1964 Alaskan
> earthquake, though.
>
> "I doubt it even moved during the quake," he chuckled.
>
> Recently, he rediscovered the fruitcake, still in its white box,
> enshrouded with its brown paper wrapping with $1.21 in postage marked
> on it, in the attic of his mother's house.
>
> "I knew it had to be up there somewhere. I think I heard it crawling
> around," he said of the fruitcake, which, through Nesta's zany sense
> of humor, has taken on a life and a persona of its own.
>
> When he again found it, Nesta couldn't resist opening it to see how
> the fruitcake has faired through the last four-plus decades - which
> have spanned nine presidencies.
>
> "I was amazed that it hadn't changed at all," he said, adding that he
> quickly put the lid back on, lest it try to bite him or spread some
> spores into the air previously unknown to mankind.
>
> While looking at the white box the tin came in, Nesta made a shocking
> discovery Monday.
>
> Listed on the side of the box were the ingredients, which included
> "fancy bleached and natural seedless raisins, candied citrus fruit
> peels, glace pineapples and cherries, fancy nutmeats, pitted dates,
> flour, sugar, eggs, rum and brandy."
>
> "Oh wow," he exclaimed. "If I had known back then that it had rum and
> brandy in it, I would have eaten it."
>
Well, I can say that were consuming fruitcake from ca 1940
into the 60s and maybe the 70s. I do recall that it was
frozen some of that time though. Subsequently, we would make
fruitcake, I think from the same recipe, and eat it for years
thereafter.

--
Jean B.
nb: 2 = z in addy