I grew up on the happy side of fruitcake, not far from Rochester, Minnesota. My siblings and I loved the bitter, myrrh-like taste of candied citron and lemon peel. We thought dark raisins in a dry, dense crumb cake were fabulous. Frankly, such was the family’s delight with our foil-wrapped loaves, as weighty and treasured as if from Fort Knox, that my mother would occasionally remind us that “some people don’t like fruitcake.”
We couldn’t imagine. So wide was the world into which we were about to be sprung. We only knew my grandmother’s fruitcake, a dark version ceremoniously wrapped in bourbon-soaked cheesecloth on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving and then tucked away, until Christmas, in a closet in the basement. What I know about how culture is handed down is symbolized in those loaves, those silver bars of bullion that have become my favorite presents to give: a heartfelt combination of time, tradition, and Schilling Extracts flavoring.
First, a few things about the recipe. My grandparents made it together, in that my grandmother measured all the ingredients, cut the candied fruit, and soaked the raisins in a boozy mixture of goodness that would rival pumpkin spice if it could be appropriated into a coffee flavor. Then, she’d call Grandpa, hidden away behind The Wall Street Journal in the next room, to stir that enormous bowl of weighty, colorful chunks.
I didn’t know until much later that the family recipe actually took the Grand Champion prize at the enormous Minnesota State Fair in the 1950s, submitted by a friend of my grandmother’s, who gave her the recipe but swore her to secrecy. As a teenager, I remember clearly that I could help Grandma make it, but I was not allowed to see the recipe. I remember it being just out of my reach and being put up a little higher once when I asked about it.
That has stayed with me, too. When my grandma died, my mother read the whole thing to me over the phone. It seemed almost sacrilege. I wrote it down as fast as I could while she read. It is the only copy of the recipe I have ever seen.
It is also the only recipe I never share, which puts me in fraternity, all these years later, with the generations of women who kept secrets. I cannot give it away because it is a symbol yet of all the things my grandma thought important. Having it makes me feel emotionally wealthy. I hold the key to a family treasure.
When I’m making the batter, heavy with nuts and raisins and all that fruit, I think of what it means to be a member of a family and what it means to keep a tradition. I am the oldest daughter, which may be part of it — a quiet, unspoken expectation.
I make it every year, which means the day after every Christmas, I am hunting for marked-down candied fruit, those little plastic vessels of goodness outlandishly priced all through November and right up to December 26. I trudge from Kroger to Kroger, finding the castoffs in the oddest places — sometimes in the produce aisle, sometimes in the baking aisle, sometimes in the reduced holiday nook — and often not at all.
Then one season I realized that fruitcake and its trappings bow to the powers that rule the rest of the marketplace. I now find nice stashes of the clearance-reduced stuff in parts of town where the English and Scots are not the dominant tribe. I come home with my eyes glowing nearly as bright as the manager’s special stickers in the grocery bags. I put the loot in the freezer, where it will sit more than ten months for next year’s batch.
When I was a child, my father sliced our fruitcakes very thinly, telling us that when done correctly, they should look like sheets of stained glass. I tend to be less disciplined; either that, or I have duller knives. I dole it out in thick slices that don’t threaten to dissolve on the dessert plate in a pile of crumbles. Some years, I never get a taste, except for the crumbs on the sides of the pans.
I do have a friend, often on the gift list, who insists we take his loaf with us to dinner. He orders a wine to match and on a white cloth, with the same across our laps, we taste the goodness and prosperity of all the years, fused forever in those aromatic slices of fruit and nuts and time fermented.
Minister of Communications at the Church of the Holy Communion, Jane Roberts was formerly business and education reporter at The Commercial Appeal.
