Although Christmas cake belongs to the broader genus of "fruit cake," the Japanese came up with an actually edible species, where the only fruit is strawberries.

One of NHK's cooking shows did a how-to yesterday, which basically consisted of taking several layers of white cake, shoveling on whipped cream, and adding strawberries. Keeping in mind that Japanese confections tend to contain half as much sugar as their American counterparts might help curb the gag reflex.


Because Christmas cake is eaten on Christmas, the expression "your Christmas cake is going stale" once referred to an unmarried woman over the age of 25. These days, though, with a birth rate of 1.34 and over half of the 26-30 population never married, the use-by date on this metaphor has expired. Now the word is "konkatsu."

Labels: cooking shows, food, japan, pop culture, social studies