The Family Heirloom

One of the best passages I ever read was when Russell Baker referred to fruitcake as the only food that came closest to being classified as a family heirloom. When he wrote it, be might have had his own proof for saying that, but the rest of us have now gotten ours.

It comes via one of those odd-ball crime stories that sometimes make the newspaper. In this one, a career burglar was caught leaving a residence with two boxes, one of which it turns out contained two densely weighted bricks of fruitcake. The other box contained wine glasses from Crate and Barrel.

The burglar was caught immediately after leaving the premises from which he robbed the boxes, being caught by a policeman who was observing his every move from the outside. It turns out to be the burglar's 30th arrest. He's apparently prolific at burglary, and excellent at getting caught.

The story is almost too funny for words, but the reporter Michael Wilson does a good job of leaving the reader with the ethical question, if not the legal question, regarding the theft of fruitcake. Namely, is this a crime, or a community service?

The owner of the fruitcake certainly feels sufficiently violated. The fruitcake is an annual gift from his mother in California, who apparently supplies hundreds of people across the United States with her baking output as gifts. Because he loves it so much, he gets her to send him a second parcel. He explains, "the recipe is a poundcake foundation invented generations ago and passed down. It is a family secret that will not be shared." Sounds like an heirloom to me.

Because this theft occurred somewhere in Brooklyn and was reported in the New York Times it can only be a matter of time before the son, Mr. Purdy, will be approached for offers to sell the fruitcake alongside craft beers and homemade mayonnaise. His life is now forever altered.

The story, probably because of space limitations, leaves the reader with numerous questions.

• What did the burglar, Mr. Anibal Maldonado, think he was making off with? Because of the dense weight, did he think he was boosting gold bars?
• The police don't seem to have taken the fruitcake as evidence. Will this impede the legal proceedings? Will the case be plea bargained even lower than it already seems to be?
• Was the fruitcake left with Mr. Purdy because it was thought it would spoil in the police evidence room?

This would surely make Mr. Purdy's mom's fruitcake the first such fruitcake to come with an expiration date.

Even better for the upcoming business.

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