Two holiday heavyweights keep fans in their corners

Everyone knows the holidays have their dark side. The underbelly of holiday cheer is the conflict and strife that arises during the pressure cooker that is Christmas, and one of the central points of conflict each December is the age-old debate over which controversial comestible best signifies the holiday spirit: eggnog or fruitcake?

Once again, it’s time to choose up sides. Pick your poison:

Is it eggnog, that sweet, sticky beverage that has left many a regional sales rep floating face-up in the office punchbowl for the cleaning lady to find?

Or fruitcake, a literally ancient dessert first eaten in the Roman Empire (which means that, technically, fruitcake predates the Christmas holiday itself)? At the Rendezvous Court in downtown Los Angeles’ Millennium Biltmore Hotel, server Tom Chavez comes down squarely on the side of angels and eggnog, which flows copiously every afternoon.

“I love it. Every time I get a chance I sneak a little taste,” Chavez says. The ladies who come for high tea like it too. “They like a little sherry or brandy in it, then they like to have a little more. And a little more still. Sometimes they get really drunk and I have to cut them off.”

But Chavez balks at the idea of fruitcake.

“I don’t like that stuff at all. We used to serve it, and it was always left behind on the plate. They’d eat everything else and leave the fruitcake. Now we serve tarts with lemon, mixed fruit and kiwi. They go really well with eggnog.”

At Starbucks, the seasonal eggnog latte is an immensely popular beverage. The mixing of eggnog and coffee flavors may seem unpleasant at first whiff, but in fact the bitterness of the coffee cuts the cloying sweetness of the eggnog, resulting in a tart, velveteen beverage that is quite pleasant to consume.

“It’s surprising how good the combination is,” says Starbucks spokesperson Kelly Hewitt. “We’ve been serving it since the late ‘80s, and it’s one of our most popular items. We only sell it from mid-November through January, but customers start asking for it as soon as the weather turns.”

The absence of fruitcake from Starbucks’ pastry case is glaringly conspicuous.

“Our cranberry bars are very popular this time of year,” Hewitt offers. “But when you walk into a store you’ll probably see a free-standing floor sign that says, ‘Why do people bring fruitcake?’ It’s part of our holiday ad campaign, encouraging people to give coffee as a gift instead of fruitcake. It’s a joke.”

Russ Cugno, proprietor of the Land of Fruits and Nuts aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, begs to differ. Cugno has formed the Fruitcake Antidefamation League Ltd., or FALL, four years ago for the purpose of rehabilitating the dessert.

“I’m in the fruit and nut business, and I’ve had it with everyone making fun of fruitcake!,” Cugno fumes. “You say fruitcake and people call you a nut head. So we formed FALL to help people with their fruitcake awareness.”

If you haven’t heard as many fruitcake jokes on the radio this season, that may be due to Cugno’s outreach efforts. “The incidence of fruitcake-bashing is way down,” he says. “In fact, we’re almost ready to declare victory this year.”

According to Cugno, modern fruitcake technology has progressed far beyond the dense, thousand-year-old loaf of red and green cubes of pickled mystery fruit that haunt most Americans’ memories of Christmas past (and lurks still in the back of some freezers).

“These days there are chocolate cherry fruitcakes, and fruitcakes made with almonds, apricots and brandy,” Cugno rhapsodizes.

According to Cugno, the modern fruitcake is so tasty that some customers are even buying them for personal consumption, rather than as gifts.

“I don’t think they’re proud of it,” he laments. “They’re secretive. They won’t admit that it’s for them. It’s still a little bit like buying feminine hygiene products.”

Over in Van Nuys at the world headquarters of Dandy Don’s Ice Cream, owner Don Whittmore insists that the solution to the eggnog versus fruitcake question is a big slice of fruitcake served a la mode with a scoop of his eggnog ice cream, a rich, heady concoction with a whiff of rum flavoring that is only available at specialty stores like Howe’s Market and gourmet restaurants that special-order it.

“Ours isn’t eggnog-flavored, it’s eggnog ice cream,” he says. “We use the whole egg. But every year I hope that someone will send me a fruitcake so that I can put ice cream on it. My favorites are the ones from Texas with lots of pecans.”

Better yet, if you are re-gifted with a fruitcake you suspect of dating to the Roman Empire, don’t call the Smithsonian, call Dandy Don. “Bring your fruitcake to us, and we’ll make it into fruitcake ice cream for you! We’ll make ice cream out of anything you like.”

So it is that we may consider the great fruitcake-eggnog debate solved, at least for this year. Now we can turn our attention to meatier questions, like what, exactly, is a sugarplum?

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The last in a series of holiday essays.