VERMONT WINTER -- Let Them Eat Fruitcake

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The Lone Winter
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White Genesis
by Wayne Kelley

Let Them Eat Fruitcake
by Mary Lou Healy

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Oh No! My Woodstove Has a Catalyst in It!!
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Let Them Eat Fruitcake
by Mary Lou Healy

This is a wonderful season of joy and good will. It's marred by only one divisive element-fruitcake! This holiday staple polarizes otherwise happy celebrants into two distinct camps...fruitcake lovers and fruitcake haters, with, it seems, no lukewarm emotions. Either you're a booster or a basher. Mention fruitcake and boosters will cite the best kind and where to buy it or how to make it. Bashers will go into paroxysms of disgust at the thought of eating the stuff, have suggestions as to what should be done with it, or horror tales of dread fruitcake encounters.

Take the story of the travelling fruitcake, years on the road like the Flying Dutchman or the Man Without A Country. One family received it on some long ago Christmas from distant friends. On the following Christmas, they wrapped it in elaborate packaging and sent it back to the givers. On the next holiday, it returned. And so on and so on - the gift that keeps on giving.

During the holidays, fruitcake is frequently the butt of cartoonists' humor. Gary Larson, of Far Side fame, captioned one of his drawings, "Unbeknownst to most theologians, there was a fourth wise man, who was turned away for bringing fruitcake."

Edward Gorey, of the macabre artistry (you may see his work on PBS Mystery series) offers a real fruitcake put-down. His cartoon shows a Victorian family by the light of a fruitcake moon, tossing several of them through a hole in the ice. These cakes will probably keep quite well and rise up to haunt the family with the spring thaw.

For that is the most hated and feared attribute of the fruitcake-its ability to survive. Properly stored, it can last ten years or longer. Indeed, some folks believe this confection is virtually indestructible. Archaeologists of the future will probably unearth such relics perfectly preserved, just as inedible as on the day they emerged from the ovens. At least that's the opinion of fruitcake bashers.

Ingredients - Delectable and Otherwise
We who enjoy and respect fruitcakes may envision tender raisins, sweet and tangy citron and peel, succulent candied fruits and crunchy nuts; but one debunker lists, among his antidotes for the Christmas spirit, reading the processed fruitcake label.

"Pay particular attention to the section specifying assorted bits and pieces of diced garden hose, red and green. Remember that these are made with the same preservatives used by Dick Clark..."

We should note that for every basher there are probably three to sing praise. For instance, the Trappist Monks. Across the nation, the monks are baking fruitcakes; and, while their habits and monastic rules are rooted in yesterday, their sales are such that they track them by computer. The monks are definitely on-line.

It might be appropriate for the Trappist to use Dolley Madison's recipe for Scripture Cake. Devout, and secretive about her "receipts" (as recipes were once called), she recorded her recipe in cryptic Biblical terms. Contemporaries wishing to bake her cake had to comb the Bible to discover her ingredients...butter, sugar, honey, eggs, spices, baking powder and salt, baking soda, flour, water, raisins, figs and almonds.

One very old recipe calls for "four pounds of butter, a quart of ale yeste, tenn eggs, rose water, all most a quart of creme, half a peck of finest flower, a pound of loafe sugar, a quart of an ounce of mace and six pounds of currants...your kake must be as stiff as it will stick about the pan and your hands." To say nothing of how it will stick about your stomach and ribs, if you are able to lift it after its two hours in the oven! The recipe states the "kake" will keep until Easter. Of what year, it doesn't specify.

Traditional Plum Pudding Packs a Kick
The English steam their fruitcakes for three hours, then bake them, perhaps on the premise that anything worth doing, is worth overdoing. Or perhaps it harks back to the cake's forerunner, plum pudding. An English Christmas isn't complete without it.

Plum pudding appears to have evolved from "a sort of soup with plums, which is called plum porridge." This was made with beef-shin broth, bread crumbs, spices and fruits, boiled gently, and "strengthened" with a quart each of canary and red port.

An 1890 recipe for the pudding required dough, fermenting beer, milk, brandy, whiskey and gin in equal parts with bread and fruits. Stirred by the whole family for at least three days, it was then hung in a linen bag for six weeks, "in order to ferment."

Custom always demanded family participation in the making. Housewives often added a thimble, a ring, a coin and a button to forecast the recipient's future. (No record exists of how many unfortunates choked on these tidbits in pre-Heimlich maneuver days.) The pudding was then liberally sprinkled with powdered sugar, topped with holly, surrounded by blazing brandy and delivered in triumph to the table.

Today, we're much more likely to be offered fruitcake than plum pudding. Devotees have their own favorites whether dark or light, with alcohol or teetotal, cake-textured or with barely enough batter to bind the fruit. The latter was my mother's choice. Having baked weeks ahead, she drizzled rum or brandy, or both, over it many times before the holiday. No wonder she was so cheerful by Christmas!

I prefer a cake bursting with cherries, pineapple, walnuts and pecans. I carefully clip every such recipe I find, yet cannot recall the last time I actually baked one. Nutty as a fruitcake? Could be. A slang dictionary lists it as covering "the whole range from slightly odd to raving lunacy."

My plan for enjoying holiday fruitcake is simple. I wait for my cousin, a fruitcake basher, to receive her annual offering from afar and pass it on to me. Graciously, I take it off her hands.

Now, all you fruitcake boosters, we wish you wonderful holidays enriched by the fruitcake of your choice. Should you happen to be among the bashers, why just send yours along to me!
Mary Lou Healy, an "umpteenth generation" New Englander, writes regularly for our journal. Forward fruitcakes to her in care of The Vermont Weathervane. You may entirely depend on us passing them along!