I made fruitcake for the holidays. I know – Ick.
Many people hate it. I like my
mother’s dark fruitcake recipe, which I make without the icky stuff she put in her version. I use dates, dried apricots, raisins and walnuts. No red or green candied cherries! As a result, I feel disgustingly superior and virtuous.
Only my daughter and I will eat fruitcake these days. I could easily skip it, but this is my first Christmas since Mom died. I miss her and I really wanted to make it. It will make my daughter happy. Maybe I can talk my granddaughter into trying it? Stranger things have happened.
Mom made fruitcake every Christmas I can remember until the slow progression of that hateful Parkinson’s Disease made it impossible for her to bake. Then I started making the Christmas fruitcake. I would send her one in the mail, just like she used to to do for me after I got married and moved far away. They weigh a ton, so the postage probably cost more than the ingredients; but it was my special gift to her. I felt I was honoring her in the making of it, and I knew she liked that I was carrying on her tradition. As a mother and a grandmother I understand that now.
Food-related holiday traditions are the legacy of the common woman. As long as someone is still making our recipes we have achieved some form of immortality.
Of course, as a daughter (or son), you have to make these things a little different than your mother did. We must put our own spin on it to reflect our uniqueness, our modernity, our necessary and never-ending rebellion. Who among us actually wants to BE their mother? Not many. We adjust and tweak to insure we are different. How much we have to tweak depends on who our mothers were.
I must confess that I stopped making them a few years ago, in 2012 - that fateful year when the fruitcakes I made went moldy. It made me so mad, that mold. I threw a big, stinkin’ fit and stopped making the effort in subsequent years. I guess I showed them! Now I regret that and so many other things. I was not the best daughter I could have been.
I cannot go back and make my mother a fruitcake for 2013 and 2014. Instead, I made a memorial fruitcake in 2015. I am storing it in the fridge because in Florida I do not have a cool basement, or any basement for that matter. I am going wild with the brandy. If it gets moldy I am going to throw it out without saying a word. I am keeping my anger in check. This is now a ritual, a sacrifice, an act of love. From here on in it is the making of fruitcake that is important, not the eating of it.
It occurs to me that she may not have liked my version of the fruitcake. As I shamelessly bragged above, my version does not include candied green and red cherries, and who knows what other carcinogenic or candied crap she used to put in her version. She never believed those things could be bad for you. She liked the bad stuff, my Mom. It used to drive me crazy.
She definitely did not soak her cheesecloth in brandy. She used apple juice and wrapped the cakes in muslin. I am quite sure she also liked thinking that her fruitcake was better than mine. And, of course, it was. To be completely honest I miss the red candied cherries. I probably should not admit it or the thought police might come and haul me away. Out of sheer orneriness, let me say it loud and proud: the red candied cherries were my favorite part. I was a fool for not realizing that earlier. Next year I will put them back in.
I just realized that instead of giving her the fruitcake she wanted, I gave her the fruitcake I thought she should have. Aaaack! It is a good thing she loved me, because I can be insufferable.
Mothers understand these things, though. At least I do when my daughter now makes many of "my" Christmas cookies just a little bit different than I did. To become our grown-up selves we must separate from our mothers.
I am beginning to understand why a mother will always love her children more than her children will love her. Otherwise, none of us would ever leave her and no one would ever grow up. It is as it should be.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikS9wU7ffnZb3QrCbMMbb7CCJ2tr40LywnJSTWRfTf0NPx68R0mpkdJHSl_ROTt8_cotdj14dpOqX6HldgM8PX1v4SFiZlMvlMhe_JE-Ydsc648oIJ_abvxXprnI4rw6ptfHZONtYzgQA/s400/fruit-cake+2.jpg)
Only my daughter and I will eat fruitcake these days. I could easily skip it, but this is my first Christmas since Mom died. I miss her and I really wanted to make it. It will make my daughter happy. Maybe I can talk my granddaughter into trying it? Stranger things have happened.
Mom made fruitcake every Christmas I can remember until the slow progression of that hateful Parkinson’s Disease made it impossible for her to bake. Then I started making the Christmas fruitcake. I would send her one in the mail, just like she used to to do for me after I got married and moved far away. They weigh a ton, so the postage probably cost more than the ingredients; but it was my special gift to her. I felt I was honoring her in the making of it, and I knew she liked that I was carrying on her tradition. As a mother and a grandmother I understand that now.
Food-related holiday traditions are the legacy of the common woman. As long as someone is still making our recipes we have achieved some form of immortality.
Of course, as a daughter (or son), you have to make these things a little different than your mother did. We must put our own spin on it to reflect our uniqueness, our modernity, our necessary and never-ending rebellion. Who among us actually wants to BE their mother? Not many. We adjust and tweak to insure we are different. How much we have to tweak depends on who our mothers were.
I must confess that I stopped making them a few years ago, in 2012 - that fateful year when the fruitcakes I made went moldy. It made me so mad, that mold. I threw a big, stinkin’ fit and stopped making the effort in subsequent years. I guess I showed them! Now I regret that and so many other things. I was not the best daughter I could have been.
I cannot go back and make my mother a fruitcake for 2013 and 2014. Instead, I made a memorial fruitcake in 2015. I am storing it in the fridge because in Florida I do not have a cool basement, or any basement for that matter. I am going wild with the brandy. If it gets moldy I am going to throw it out without saying a word. I am keeping my anger in check. This is now a ritual, a sacrifice, an act of love. From here on in it is the making of fruitcake that is important, not the eating of it.
It occurs to me that she may not have liked my version of the fruitcake. As I shamelessly bragged above, my version does not include candied green and red cherries, and who knows what other carcinogenic or candied crap she used to put in her version. She never believed those things could be bad for you. She liked the bad stuff, my Mom. It used to drive me crazy.
She definitely did not soak her cheesecloth in brandy. She used apple juice and wrapped the cakes in muslin. I am quite sure she also liked thinking that her fruitcake was better than mine. And, of course, it was. To be completely honest I miss the red candied cherries. I probably should not admit it or the thought police might come and haul me away. Out of sheer orneriness, let me say it loud and proud: the red candied cherries were my favorite part. I was a fool for not realizing that earlier. Next year I will put them back in.
I just realized that instead of giving her the fruitcake she wanted, I gave her the fruitcake I thought she should have. Aaaack! It is a good thing she loved me, because I can be insufferable.
Mothers understand these things, though. At least I do when my daughter now makes many of "my" Christmas cookies just a little bit different than I did. To become our grown-up selves we must separate from our mothers.
I am beginning to understand why a mother will always love her children more than her children will love her. Otherwise, none of us would ever leave her and no one would ever grow up. It is as it should be.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikS9wU7ffnZb3QrCbMMbb7CCJ2tr40LywnJSTWRfTf0NPx68R0mpkdJHSl_ROTt8_cotdj14dpOqX6HldgM8PX1v4SFiZlMvlMhe_JE-Ydsc648oIJ_abvxXprnI4rw6ptfHZONtYzgQA/s400/fruit-cake+2.jpg)
I've never thought of mother/daughter relationships in terms of food. My mother was a terrible cook, except for Sunday pot roast, which I made well, when I cooked. I miss my mother for her presence, and must agree a mother always loves her children more than they love her. And so on down the generations.
ReplyDeleteI just made pot roast the other day. We often had that for Sunday dinner, too, when I was growing up. This time of the year evokes so many memories.
DeleteThis post touched me so. Family is full of traditions and some that down the line are forgotten. However, that day comes (and it always come) when we have regrets and return to our roots and the feelings of comfort are restored.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I always value your comments on here, and on the other blogs we both read. The regret "thing" is interesting, sitting with it. Accepting it. I wish comfort was more long lasting.
DeleteMy mum loved fruitcake. I would make it for her when she was no longer able to make it for herself. Between the rum in the batter and the rum I fed it to keep it moist I think those fruitcakes packed a little bit of a punch. I know she loved them:)
ReplyDeleteI miss my mum too. I had every Christmas with her until she died almost three years ago. Fifty years of Christmases.
I'll miss my own children this year again. I will not ask them to come home to be with me like my own mother did to me. But a part of me wishes that I could. They have their own lives now. I know it's only a day but every year it disappoints.
Ooooh, rum. I have always used brandy; however, perhaps I'll try rum next year. That sounds good. I am sorry your children won't be with you. In spite of that, I am sending you the very best wishes for a happy, healthy, and very merry holiday.
DeleteMy reply was not enough. I hear you. I wish it was different.
DeleteI've never been a fan of fruitcake. But yours actually sounds good, well, one slice. And keep the brandy coming!
ReplyDeleteI do make my Mother's cookies, the little white ones with walnuts that you roll in a ball and when they cool you roll them in powdered sugar. And I make my Grandmother's little hand-pie apricot pies. I have to say that I make them exactly like theirs, I don't know how I do it, but I do. They must have left that talent to me. Thank heavens!
I've just read Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory" published in 1946, about how he and his aunt made dozens of fruitcakes when he was a little boy. It's one of the best Christmas stories I've ever read.
And yes, you are so, so right when you say that a mother will always love her children more than they will love her... that's the way it should be.
My mother used to make those little white, powdered sugar covered balls. I forgot about those and have not made them in many years. I will read "A Christmas Memory."I am SO sorry about your recent blog troubles. Things like that make me hope there is a special place in hell for hackers and trolls. But, of course, their hell is here on earth. Otherwise they wouldn't behave in the tortured and self-defeating way they do.
DeleteMy husband loves fruitcake, even the cheap kind that people laugh at. Last year I made several homemade ones for the first time, and like you, I used good quality dried fruits instead of the candied kind. And brandy. They were good, but I honestly missed the bright colors. This year, I have no time to bake anything from scratch. My dad is going into the hospital tomorrow to deal with heart problems among other things going on in my life this year. So I suppose my husband will be eating Claxton fruitcake again this year.
ReplyDeleteMy grandma was the real cook in our family, my mom not so much. I miss her all the time, and especially at Christmas.
I have noticed you have referred to your father's health issues. You will both be in my thoughts tomorrow!
DeleteNot to worry, Claxton is a good fruitcake!
Grandma's are quite special, aren't they? Mine was a Tennessee woman who married a Southeastern Kentucky man. Her Christmas specialty was divinity fudge. Great memories. I need to write more about her. She was outstanding. Their parents were both farmers who grew tobacco, by the way - so I really enjoyed your recent post and photos.
I know this post is about so much more than fruitcake but all I can think about is, for all the jokes about it, I have never tasted a fruitcake. I think it may be time . . .
ReplyDeleteOh, you really should. There are a number of different kinds, though. I prefer the dark fruitcake (molasses or brown sugar). OK, maybe I have never actually had any other kind.
DeleteLOL
ReplyDeleteI love fruit cakes ,well good fruit cakes I like the ones with the candied cherries also
I remember my Mom and Grandmother made several fruit cakes one year,they added lots whiskey to them, no mold just lots whiskey LOL
Welcome! Maybe whiskey is the secret to mold free fruitcake?
DeleteEvery year we used to get in the mail a fruitcake made by my daughter's German grandmother, only me and my daughter liked it and we miss it now very much. Each year i want to back one and for some unknown reason i dont.May be next year.
ReplyDeleteIt is a lot of work.
DeleteI would prefer yours, of course! I don't have any recipes of my grandma's, but I know that Tam makes her Christmas cookie cut-outs, now with her girls. The year we lived in Florida for Christmas (2000), she mailed them to me....in a Maxine tin! I am so happy you get to enjoy traditions with E & N (plus M, M & T, of course)! I am certain these things will continue with them as they become adults. I have crafted many of my own traditions over the years, while having a few from my childhood. Tho I may not practice them every year, I am always reminded of holidays from my youth by Elvis's Christmas songs, which my dad always played, and amazing ceramic ornaments my mom made, which I always put on our tree (when we put one up, that is). I didn't know about Aunt Teresa's fruitcake. Thank you for sharing. Love you!
ReplyDeleteI don't have any of your grandma's recipes, but I do have a couple of my Grandma's (your Great Grandma's) that I will send you via email.
Delete