The earliest fruit cake recipe is from ancient Rome, and lists pomegranate seeds, pine nuts and raisins mixed into barley mash. Fruit cake proliferated all over Europe, with recipes varying greatly by country and depending on available ingredients. In England, fruit cake is traditionally served at Christmas or weddings. The tradition of eating fruit cake at Christmas also exists here in Canada, especially among those of British heritage. If fruit cake is soaked in alcohol, it could remain edible for many years. In 2003, Jay Leno of “The Tonight Show” famously sampled a fruit cake baked in 1878 and kept as a heirloom by a Michigan family. Johnny Carson, Leno’s predecessor on “The Tonight Show,” turned the long-keeping nature of the fruit cake into a joke, saying there’s really only one fruit cake in the world, passed from family to family.