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Fruitcake

The Source

I’ll admit it. I like fruitcakes. Not the kind I run into at theatre conventions or family reunions, but the nut-laced, berry-filled, brownie-fied concoctions that get so much abuse in the holiday season. You know the old wives’ tales of the same fruitcake being sent back and forth for forty years, still retaining its flavor and dread. My advice? You don’t want your Aunt Marie’s fruitcake, send it to me. In fact, one of my most hilarious holiday moments came as a result of a rum-laced fruitcake. I once knew an extremely pious lady who delighted in making New Year’s fruitcakes so laden with high octane rum that you could get high just passing through her kitchen. I never understood this. The lady was a holy terror when it came to condemning the consumption of alcohol but she had somehow fooled herself into believing that the demon rum would turn angelic if poured into fruitcake batter. And this lady did not cook the alcohol content away. You could have squeezed her fruitcake into a glass and served it as a cocktail. One New Year’s Day found me at her house in time to taste her booze cake and as fate would have it, a friend of mine was also in attendance. Talk about a teetotaler, this guy won’t even walk by a tavern. I mean this guy is Temperance Society with a capital “T" and can’t even pronounce the word “beer.” When the Budweiser Clydesdales came to Jacksonville last year, he refused to take his grandsons. So we sat down to the lady’s New Year’s refreshment, including the fruitcake, and my buddy took a bite. He loved it. For the life of me I can’t remember whether I thought about stopping him or I had been smitten with a mean streak on that cold winter morning, but bottom line: I watched him eat a piece. And another. And another. This guy whose lips had never tasted the forbidden fruit was now romping around the tree of knowledge and loving every mouthful. Then he asked for more. I’d never seen him giggle like this. He kept commenting on how this was the best fruitcake he’d ever eaten. The guy was consuming large quantities of booze-laden dessert and I didn’t have the heart to explain the reason for his joy. That’s when he asked for the recipe. I looked at the cook. The cook looked at me. We both knew what was happening. She muttered something like “Oh, it’s a secret family recipe,” and hoped that he wasn’t driving home any time soon. The lady has long since departed us but when I see my buddy over the holidays he always remarks about how much he wishes he could have another taste of that great fruitcake. I’ve never had the nerve to tell him that he’s a holiday-aholic. A friend of mine from Arenzville used to work at our local convenience store and she’d keep a stash of her homemade bourbon fruitcakes under the counter. Since the store didn’t have a highball fruitcake license, she’d have to sneak one in my sack when I purchased bread. Every time she told me she was getting too old for all that cooking I’d badger, plead, flirt, and cajole her into extending her tradition one more year. It made filling my tank a pleasure. Last New Year’s someone sent me a list of uses for holiday fruitcakes, including cutting slices to balance that wobbly kitchen table, using as sandbags during El Nino, sending them to the air force to use as Drone Missiles, railroad ties, speed bumps, skeet shooting, and decorative pin cushions. My college roommate said he once dissected a fruitcake for his fifth-grade archeology project. My uncle claimed he put all his fruitcakes into his toilet tank to save water. Being a bachelor and not much into cooking, I often take them to holiday parties where the guests will nibble on them all night while saying, “I hate fruitcake. I can’t stand these things. Give me some more.” I once taught a seventh-grade class who had never heard of fruitcakes. This was unpatriotic in my book, so I bought a couple and brought them to class. And most importantly these kids had never heard any fruitcake stories. Like a small child who thinks that a skunk is adorable, they’d not been poisoned by the tales of their parents. Perhaps it was the fact that their only alternative was the school lunch, but the kids loved the things! They quite literally ate them up. I had to fake my way through a few questions like, “How can a cherry be green?” but in 30 minutes’ time I had converted them. In a world where you may be thinking that the younger generation is quickly going to hell in a hat basket, be ye encouraged! They may hot be able to tell time, add a column of numbers without their IPhone or tell you the major exports of Bolivia, but praise God! They love their fruitcake! Peace on Earth can’t be far behind.