Between February and mid-December, monks at the Assumption Abbey in Ava, Mo., produce about 25,000 fruitcakes. The monks have gained a national reputation for carefully controlling the production. They marinate the fruit, age the cakes and even package and ship the product from their foothills monastery.
Before each two-pound cake leaves the abbey, it gets a special prayer from the monks aimed at all those who eat the cake.
At $31 apiece, the cakes allow the monks to live out solitary lives of work and prayer on their compound southeast of Springfield.
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Rumor: There's only one fruitcake in the world and it keeps getting re-gifted.
One Christmas, while working at Hickory Farms, we were sampling fruitcake. After 3 days of not finding even one person willing to try a piece, we finally had a guy stop who said he loved fruitcake. We wrapped up the whole thing & sent it home with him :)
The only two things left after a "nuclar war" RE (G.W. Bush) would be cockroaches and fruit cake : )