Of all the tasty confections served up each holiday season, fruitcake has somehow become the dessert Americans love to hate. With origins in ancient Rome, the modern-day fruitcake is a brick of nuts, candied fruit, and dense, chewy pastry. Renowned for its shelf life and old-fashioned flavor, it remains a popular gift despite jokes about its remarkable heft and sometimes questionable age.
Each year, the Science Museum of Virginia makes this culinary curiosity the object of a series of unconventional science experiments. Fruitcake Science gives museum visitors a chance to see what happens when a fruitcake is burned, flash-frozen, dunked and smashed. Does its legendary density protect it from the assaults of physics? Or does it crumble when put to the scientific test?
As always, museum staff will make fruitcake for guests to sample. This year they’re adding something new to the batter: cricket flour. Yes, crickets--the insects. Including this unconventional ingredient highlights the health and environmental benefits of eating bugs. Will you give it a try?
Fruitcake Science happens from Thursday, December 26 through Monday, December 30, and is included with museum admission.
