A couple who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last week have revealed one secret to keeping their marriage from getting stale: eating cake that is very, very much so.
Ann and Ken Fredericks of Satellite Beach, Florida, celebrate their anniversary by eating a bite from their wedding cake every year -- the remains of which they’re now keeping covered in plastic wrap inside a metal coffee can, Florida Today reports.
But they don’t store it inside a refrigerator or freezer. The cake's actually sitting inside a closet at room temperature.
Ann Fredericks, 81, said their children are “appalled” they’re still eating the decades-old dessert, but said the dark fruit cake will keep indefinitely. They pour brandy over the cake to moisten it before digging in, and usually break open a bottle of champagne to go with it, she said.
“Believe me, it’s quite tasty, as long as it’s got enough brandy on it. And it’s never made us sick,” she told Florida Today.
She did tell ABC News that “it’s a little dry.”
Watch the Fredericks tell Florida Today about their tradition (story continues below):
The two are surprised by the amount of media attention they’ve received over the cake.
“"We just never thought of this as being unusual,” Ann Fredericks told ABC.
A representative from Ask Karen, a food safety chat service sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, expressed some skepticism over the cake’s safety.
“We wouldn't recommend practically any food that old,” the spokesperson told The Huffington Post.
A 60-year-old cake would likely remain safe to eat if it's kept in the freezer at or near zero degrees Fahrenheit, but probably wouldn’t taste great, the Ask Karen rep noted.
Ann Fredericks, a former nurse and retired nursing supervisor, and Ken Fredericks, a retired music teacher, met while attending Syracuse University in New York. Both are originally from New York, but they’ve called Florida home since 1968.
Contact the author of this article at Hilary.Hanson@huffingtonpost.com