desert fruit cake

noun

An edible cake or bar created by pounding together seeds, nuts, berries, insects (crickets, katydids, or ants), meat or starchy roots, eaten by Amerindians, early pioneer settlers, and Mormons, in the dry western Great Plains and Rockies foothills, especially around the region of the Great Salt Lake. It is one of the traditional survival foods passed from the Amerinds to the white newcomers for surviving winter starvation.

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Meanings

noundesert fruit cake (countable and uncountable, plural desert fruit cakes)

plural desert fruit cakes

  1. countablerareuncountableAn edible cake or bar created by pounding together seeds, nuts, berries, insects (crickets, katydids, or ants), meat or starchy roots, eaten by Amerindians, early pioneer settlers, and Mormons, in the dry western Great Plains and Rockies foothills, especially around the region of the Great Salt Lake. It is one of the traditional survival foods passed from the Amerinds to the white newcomers for surviving winter starvation.

Origin

From desert + fruit cake.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

desert fruit cake. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/desert%20fruit%20cake

MLA

“desert fruit cake.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/desert%20fruit%20cake. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “desert fruit cake,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/desert%20fruit%20cake.

Source: desert fruit cake on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.