|
As with all good cooks my great grandmother had her own very special fruitcake recipe. Her secret ingredient wasn't really so much of a secret as we all knew where it was kept hidden in her old fashioned kitchen. Being of scottish decent my Grams as we all affectionately called her, had a taste for scotch whiskey. The family dearly loved most of Grams recipes but were clearly divided on the fruitcake. As with most people in the world you either love or intensely dislike fruitcake. Grams was well known for her doughnuts and rice pudding. I don't ever remember anyone ever saying they didn't like them, but now the fruitcake was a different matter. Grams would start her Christmas fruitcake shortly after Thanksgiving and continue the wrapping and preserving process up until it was ready for the Christmas holidays. It's impossible to age a fruitcake too long, say those in the know. If stored in an airtight container and basted occasionally with liquor, it'll keep indefinitely. But then again the same might be said of the cooks who make it. In the middle ages in some places the fruitcake was considered semi sacred and a law was in place that it was to be made only for special celebrations. Well Grams made it once a year, so to her it was sacred, or at least the process was. I can remember watching her mix the ingredients in a huge bowl and it seemed like it took forever to get everything mixed in. There was a very large special round baking pan that was used in the oven, and she would take down the big wooden box that she had saved years before that once held hoop cheese. It would hold a ten pound fruitcake very nicely. Every once in awhile I would watch her sneak off to the corner cabinet and act like she was looking for something inside. Of course this is where her secret ingredient was kept.
Grams was a very special kind of lady years ahead of her time. Having only an eighth grade education never slowed her down. She was actually more knowledgeable and informed than anyone I knew. She would read a book every single day of her life and listen to the news on the radio. She never did own a television set, but I was never bored when I went to visit her. She taught me how to play dominoes, bake pies, make soap, do laundry the old fashioned way of boiling your clothes and then wash them with fels naptha, play checkers and how to use my mind to solve problems. I was taught to travel to exotic places using my imagination and pretend to be a queen, princess, president or anything else I wanted to be. Life at my great-grandmothers as a child was wonderful. I never went to bed one night in her home
that I wasn't tucked in and read a bedtime story. I also remember her special treats that she kept in her bedroom in a jar beside her bed. They were little chocolate babies, although I have searched in my adult life I have never been able to find them. I remember how amazed I use to be to see my grams at a height under five foot, and small in stature go through her morning routine of unbraiding her hair, combing it out and then re-braiding it, twisting it into a circle at the top of her head. I remember thinking as a child that it looked just like a crown setting up there. This really was no small feat as her hair laid out on the floor probably two foot when it was down and unbraided.
She would always teach me things while she was baking. I was told that not sifting the flour first was like leaving a job half done, in this way while baking I was getting a lesson in taking pride in whatever job I did, to always give it my best and not do things half way. There were always lessons in with her baking, like how to be a lady, how modesty was important, how sometimes people hurt you but never to hurt someone deliberately and always how important family was. Some people thought of my grams as a bit of the mystic because she could read the tea leaves, and tell a bit about your future like most old scottish women. I never really thought much about it and loved her all the same.
The fruitcake had a very precise method to it's making and grams knew exactly how it went, she had it all down in her head and the only way you got the recipe from her was to help her bake it and watch. Hands on experience is the best she would always says. She would gather all the ingredients and set them out on her big round, oak, bear claw footed, kitchen table. Everything always as fresh as you could get it. You could never really get precise measurements from her as she had certain dishes that held the specific ingredients. She had come from a time when they measured in dollops of this and handfuls of that. Although her oven was an up to date one she would tell me about when she was a girl and when you could hold your hand in the oven near the hearth to the count of sixty then it was ready to bake bread.
Looking out over the table there was butter (real not margarine), sugar (both white and brown), a bowl full of eggs (fresh from the farm), baking powder, flour (in her big tin), salt, pecans and walnuts (shelled), nutmeg (still in nut form that you had to grate yourself), white raisins and candied fruit (not like the kind you buy in the stores today), and last but not least a bottle of bourbon whiskey. The mixing of the ingredients took place in a ceremonial fashion, with grams going back to her corner in the kitchen every now and then for a sip of her not so secret ingredient. The batter was then placed in her special pan for the baking of the holiday fruitcake. Into the oven it went and baked at 350 degrees, while we all cleared the baking mess, then sat down to a game of dominoes at her old table.
The smell was wonderful throughout the whole house, but my grams house always smelled good. She would always, if we had oranges for breakfast, boil the skins with a little cinnamon to make it smell good. After a few games of dominoes the cake was done and was pulled from the oven to cool. At this point my Grams got her cheese box ready and cheese cloth was brought out and put in a bowl. Then some of the bourbon was poured over the cheese cloth. When the cake had cooled enough Grams would poke a toothpick in several places in the top. She would then pour bourbon on top of the cake. The cheese cloth that was saturated with bourbon would then be very carefully wrapped around the cake until it completely surrounded it. It was then placed inside the cheese box and set on a shelf inside her cellar-way door. Every week all the way up to Christmas the fruitcake would be taken out and ceremoniously dressed with wrappings of cheesecloth and bourbon. With the dressing of the cake each week my Grams would also ceremoniously have a few nips of her secret ingredient. I really don't want to make Grams sound like a lush because this was the only time of year we witnessed this behavior in her. It was like it was some kind of tradition.
About two weeks into the seasonal basting and wrapping of the fruitcake, grams started calling everyone highly agitated. I heard her voice on the other end of the line saying you have got to come quick, someone has stolen my fruitcake! Grams rarely got upset over anything , so I went over to her house, where I found most of the rest of the family. Grams was saying I took it out last week and wrapped in another layer of bourbon soaked cheesecloth just like I always do and when I went to the cellar way to get it for this weeks basting it was gone. Then she looked right at my cousin David and said you never liked my fruitcake did you? David looked at her with a smile, no Grams I don't like anyone's fruitcake but if I was going to like someone's fruitcake it would be yours. Grams sat down in her chair with a plunk and for the first time ever we saw such a sad look on her face.
She started talking then about why the fruitcake was so important to her. Grams mother had died when she was a girl of about twelve and like most people in those times there was no social services to come in and take care of things. While her father worked my Grams being the oldest had taken on the duties of caring for the home and younger siblings. She went on to tell us all that the making of the holiday fruitcake was a tradition her mother had brought with her from the old country. It held very special memories of her mother. It had been one of the few times in her life that her mother had spent time with and shared time just for her, while she was teaching her the holiday tradition of her ancestors. I can remember her in that old kitchen putting on her special apron, laying everything out in readiness, talking to me in that old Scottish brogue, but most of all I can remember her hugs and the way she smelled when she kissed my cheek. I remember her telling me how important it was to carry on tradition and family remembrances. So you see every year when I make the fruitcake I think of my mother and back to the love that went into the making of it. We all gathered round her with tears in our eyes. I began to see that she had been carrying on her family tradition with all of us. I saw how much love my Grams had put into each ingredient. I reluctantly started thinking about a time when we wouldn't have Grams and if her traditions, taught with such love, would be carried on.
It was then that my uncle said ok lets all spread out and start looking, it is highly unlikely someone stole the fruitcake, it has to be here somewhere. Well away they went on their search, you could hear things shaking and rattling everywhere. I sat down beside Grams and put my arm on her shoulder. Don't worry we'll find it. By the way what were you doing Saturday? Well Grams said my usual routine, I made breakfast, made the bed, washing, cleaned up the dishes and sat down here in my chair to listen to the radio news. Pretty much the same thing I do every Saturday. I also made a big pan of rice pudding and while it was cooking I wrapped the fruitcake. This week I went through all my cleaning and went to get my fruitcake to baste and it was gone. I went to look in the cellar way again thinking maybe it got put on a different shelf, but it was not there. Then I started retracing her steps from last Saturday. I went to all the places where she kept the cleaning stuff her laundry things even outside to her lines where the clothes dried, I then started looking in the shelves where the rice pudding ingredients were kept, I ran across Grams secret ingredient then and there was only a smidgeon left in it. I thought to myself Grams has been enjoying the holidays a lot this year. Then I went back into the kitchen from the pantry and saw Grams sitting in the chair still with a look on her face that told me she was in another time thinking of her mother. I then thought now what would she do next? ok she would have gotten down her special rice pudding pan, greased it for the oven, added the pudding, then put it into the oven. I opened the oven door thinking I'll just bet, but it was empty, no fruitcake there. I then headed to the pot and pan storage area and there on a shelf near the top where her rice pudding pan usually sat was the fruitcake! I took it down from the shelf and carried in to my Grams shouting I found it on the way.
I placed it on the table and said Grams here it is, she smiled then and my family that had been searching all clapped their hands. We left her wrapping her cake with the bourbon cheesecloth.
When I got outside I told them I thought Grams had maybe drank a little to much of her secret ingredient and being a little disoriented had put the fruitcake where the rice pudding pan was suppose to go. They all chuckled a little and went home.
Two weeks later at our family holiday dinner, Grams served her best fruitcake ever with delicious Kailua cream custard over top. My cousin David even ate a small piece in honor of my Grams. That was the last Christmas we had Grams with us here on earth. It would take volumes of books to ever begin to tell what her family was taught by her. What she left with me was so many memories of love, and family tradition. It is what is missing in most families today. We are all so busy trying to earn more, have more, gather more material things, that we lose sight of the very things that truly made us happy in life. Therefore we are not giving our children the gift of family tradition. They do not know what happiness can be found in a big family gathering. If the truth be known, how many of our children can tell you about their Grandparents lives or their origins? Our ancestry and what we can learn from it is being lost in today's society. Instead of reading dr.Seuss to your children or grandchildren this year, maybe it would be good to tell them a little about Christmases from your childhood and about the people in your life that made them happy for you. As for me I am headed into the kitchen to wrap my fruitcake in bourbon and enjoy the memories of my Grams. With love in my heart I wish you all the merriest of Christmas.
|
bravenet.com
