A fruitcake feeds on chill of South Pole for 106 years

Consider the fruitcake. Long maligned for its questionable taste, its ubiquity (stubbornly appearing at any or every celebratory event) and its toughness (the fridge gives it life), the dessert may have further cemented itself in food lore after a discovery in Antarctica.

In one of the most hostile regions known to humankind, conservationists unearthed an ice-covered fruitcake they believe once belonged to British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, the New Zealand-based Antarctic Heritage Trust said this past week.

The age of the fruitcake: 106 years old.

A conservation manager said it was in “excellent condition.”

And the trust said it smelled “almost” edible.

The cake, dating to the Cape Adare-based Northern Party of Scott’s Terra Nova expedition (1910-13), was found in Antarctica’s oldest building, which was constructed by a Norwegian explorer’s team in 1899 and used by Scott’s team in 1911, the trust said.

The dessert, found wrapped in paper and in its original “tin-plated iron alloy tin” container, was made by the British biscuit company Huntley & Palmers. It boasts that its “biscuits were exported all over the world and their tins have turned up in the most unexpected places.”

There is documentation showing that Scott took this brand of cake with him on his explorations, said the trust, a nonprofit organization that is in the business of “inspiring explorers.”

Lizzie Meek, program manager for artifacts at the trust, said in a statement that the cake was surprisingly well preserved.

“There was a very, very slight rancid butter smell to it, but other than that, the cake looked and smelled edible,” she said. “There is no doubt the extreme cold in Antarctica has assisted its preservation.”

The cake was among about 1,500 artifacts collected from two huts by a team of conservationists that had been working at the site since May 2016. “Finding such a perfectly preserved fruitcake among them was quite a surprise,” Meek said.

But why did the explorers haul a fruitcake to the South Pole?

“It’s an ideal high-energy food for Antarctic conditions,” Meek said, “and is still a favorite item on modern-day trips to the ice.”