Advent Calendar: December 14

(This is post 14 in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories hosted by Geneabloggers.com)

Prompt: December 14 - Fruitcake, Friend or Foe?

Did you like fruitcake? Did your family receive fruitcakes? Have you ever re-gifted fruitcake? Have you ever devised creative uses for fruitcake?

I've never had fruitcake. Ever. And it's going to stay that way.

My mother was the fruitcake maker in the family. Apparently, according to fruitcake lovers, it's a pretty good recipe.

When I was younger, we had to go to a special store (Arco?) once a year and buy the supplies. This included little colored fruity candy squares and different nuts including walnuts and pecans.

There wasn't much "cake" in a fruitcake. All the fruity bits and nuts were coated in egg, maybe flour and rum. I do remember those things stinking of rum. No wonder everybody liked them. When you cut a slice of my mom's fruitcake, it was pretty much just nuts and fruit carefully stuck together with rum-based edible glue.

These fruitcakes were made in assembly line fashion. Once done, cooled and out of the pan, they were wrapped in foil. I always thought they looked like silver bricks and would make good doorstops.

But you know what? We never had any leftovers, so I guess that recipe was good. I'll never know though, because I don't *do* fruitcake--even if it's coated in rum.


(Originally posted December 14, 2009)