Hundred-Year-Old Antarctic Fruitcake Found in 'Excellent Condition'
Conservators with Antarctic Heritage Trust have uncovered a perfectly preserved fruitcake that dates back to Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova expedition, which began in 1910.
Manufactured by the now defunct Huntley & Palmers biscuit company, the fruitcake was discovered in a long-abandoned hut at Cape Adare—an important landing site and base camp used by early Antarctic explorers. The cake, found inside a badly degraded tin box, was in remarkably good condition, appearing almost edible.
A lot of people don't realize that many years ago the original fruitcakes were made in Canada and they were all circular shaped. Throughout the years, the Canadians developed a distaste for them. The fruitcake eventually became so disliked that people who were the recipients of them began to toss them into the garbage can.
It became a tradition to dispose of them and some people decided it would be fun to come up with different methods to trash them. One day, a man name Abner Double Aye? came up with an idea. He picked up a stick and kept whacking one of them until he was able to get it to land in his trash can. He got so good at it that he would challenge people to try to stop him from his goal of lofting the fruitcake into the trash.
