My mother and several friends get together in early November each year to "fruitcake." The long process of making the toothsome concoctions begins with a raucous group effort of mixing nuts and fruits, followed by the slow baking and at least a month of ripening under wraps.
Other than that they have made a verb out of it, I see nothing more strange about fruitcaking than meeting to make holiday crafts or exchange cookies, yet when my mother excitedly tells others of her cooperative fruitcake making plans, she almost invariably receives a confused, "well, isn't that interesting" type reply, sometimes accompanied by a plea that the fruitcake not end up on his or her unsuspecting doorstep.
I love fruitcake. I don't get fruitcake jokes. Fruitcake would never stay around my place long enough to be tossed at the town park in January. Many of my friends have never tasted a fruitcake, much less received enough of them to regift them the next year (the good ones run $23-$60+ at Collin Street Bakery).
Why would one assume that one wouldn't like something made out of ingredients that one likes? And, even, if one genuinely didn't like fruitcake, why would one assume that other people can't stand something that clearly sells well at $40 a piece?
I don't get it. But then I am also a straight-A student who struggled in her basketweaving class (and yes, some of the time we were weaving underwater) and I convinced The Mister that he likes brussels sprouts well enough that he prepares them on a regular basis. I also like anchovy pizza.
Basketweaving is not easy. Brussels sprouts are not necessarily repulsive*. Some of us like fruitcake.
I wonder what I mock without knowing anything about it.
NASCAR? Corn dogs?
*I ate horrid over-boiled brussels sprouts covered with inordinate amounts of slimey fake butter at the cafeteria at my last institution. I had never had them before (I avoided school lunches growing up and my mom fixed fresh brussel sprouts) and at that point I realized why the Mister thought he hated them when we met.
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7 comments:
mmmm I would gladly be the recipient of your mother's fruitcake.
now I am hungry!
I remember the first time I tried fruitcake and actually liked it (only a few years ago)... but it's the scary bright red and green glassy things plus an inordinate amount of raisins that really frighten me.
LOVE brussels sprouts!
Of course, I must add here that fruitcakes vary immensely. I'm not a huge fan of citron and like more nuts and dried apricots than what is probably average, myself. Readers should be aware that there are all kinds. Some very nutty, some very cakey, some full of raisins and glassy green cherries, others not so much.
Thanks for reminding me to put in my fruitcake order. The monks at the Assumption Abbey in Missouri make an exquisitely delicious fruitcake. But perhaps it is precisely the distance between good fruitcake and its evil look-alike (crammed with artificially flavored fruit) that makes it so magnificent.
And apparently, English fruitcake is covered with some sort of repulsive frosting (some friends had an English wedding, complete with an iced fruitcake).
Can we get the recipe for think fruitcake?
My grandmother's involved copious soaking in rum which meant it was quite tasty and alcoholic. :-)
Those greens cherry things gross me out. In a way that makes me think something is wrong with what I am eating, like my body knows it's poisonous.
hey! i was intrigued to see collin street bakery make your blog. i stop there for chicken salad sandwiches sometimes when i'm traveling south.
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