IS THE CHRISTMAS FRUITCAKE WORTH SAVING?

IS THE CHRISTMAS FRUITCAKE WORTH SAVING?
By Veronica Breen Hogle

Every November, I hear neighbors tapping storm windows and doors into place in an effort to button-up the houses against the artic cold and snow that will turn Buffalo into a temporary Siberia. The tapping triggers memories of the chopping sounds in the cottages and farmhouses in Ireland when people made their Christmas fruitcakes. It started when the nuts, spices, raisins, currants, sultanas, imported from other countries arrived from Dublin to our village of Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny.

The arrival of the ingredients coincided with the first hard frost. But as the exotic aromas coiled up our nostrils, the icy air didn’t matter, because making the fruitcake was the first happy sign of Christmas.

In America, many people groan when they receive a fruitcake as a gift. Families have no time to make it. Others don’t like it. Many have never even tasted it. It’s a joke at the office Christmas party. Night show television hosts often joke that there is only one fruitcake that keeps being passed around as a gift. A real fruitcake is how we often describe someone with different views. It’s time to ask the question: “Is the fruitcake worth saving?”

When I lived with my grandmother, she sent me out to deliver hand written notes to the women in the valley.

“Come over on Sunday. Bring tins and some ingredients and we’ll make the fruitcake. I have a recipe in my head that came from the Trappist Monks, and I’ve some of their peachy brandy as well.”

When my grandfather was stationed in India, he learned about blending spices, and he shared this knowledge with Gran. These spicy secrets made her house the place to be to make the Christmas fruitcake.

Gran sorted out who chopped the fruits and nuts, beat the eggs and took the seeds out of the raisins. She had no written instructions. Her only measurements were handfuls of flour, saucers of sugar, big and small pinches of spices, slabs of butter, a nest of brown eggs and a wooden eggcup to measure the brandy.

As well as my job of courier, I turned the wheel of the fan to keep the fire at a certain red glow. I swayed to the banter about new babies, the crowds at the latest wake and who was coming home for Christmas. The combined sounds of voices, the whir of the fan, the chopping of fruit and nuts and the beating of eggs were lyrical.

We had a walk-in fireplace, furnished with copper pans hanging on the fireplace wall and black pots hanging on chains from a movable black iron bar. This is where my grandmother cooked all the meals, and baked pies and cakes. While the fruitcake baked over the fire, red-hot coals were packed on the iron lid. It took strong, steady hands to remove the heavy top laden with ashes, to peek in to see if the cake was plump and golden. When the cakes were removed from over the fire, they were splashed with brandy and the steam made the windows foggy. I made a porthole with the fleshy side of my fist and we watched the women walk home by moonlight, carrying their wrapped cakes in brown wicker baskets.

When our cake was cool, Gran wrapped it in cheesecloth, stood on a chair and put it on top of the cupboard where it was quiet and dark and the ingredients could become intimate friends. It was also safe from night raiders. Every week, she ceremoniously lowered it and doused it with brandy – an eggcup for the cake – the same for the baker.

On Christmas Eve, Gran smothered the cake in ivory-colored marzipan. Using various-sized crocket hooks and darning needles as implements, she made ornate swirls and designs on the top and the sides. She put three fresh mint leaves on the top and displayed her work of art on a glass pedestal, set in a circle of fresh red-berry holly.

“It’s like a ceiling in a basilica,” Gran crowed, her face soft and lovely in the light of the brass paraffin lamp.

It’s been 42 years since I made a fruitcake. Today, I will shop for the exotic fruits and nuts. I’ll invite a few friends to come chop, beat and banter, just as women used to do in Gran’s kitchen. We’ll inhale the smells of nutmeg, cinnamon and mace. We’ll drink an eggcup full of brandy and watch through the glass oven door as the fruitcakes become plump and golden. I’m going to do this because I love fruitcake. Now even if you don’t like fruitcake, the ritual of making it is worth saving. Also, believe it or not, there are many fruit cake lovers lurking out there.

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This piece appeared in The Buffalo News, New York, and the Carlow Nationalist, Ireland.

Story ID:	3209
Written by:	Veronica Breen Hogle (bio, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Irish Cultural Events
Story type:	Family Memories
Writers Conference:	My Favorite Holiday Story
Location:	Graiguenamanagh Co. Kilkenny Ireland
Year:	1949
Person:	Mary Kate Earls and neighbors