The writer's Irish mother collected the dense, sweet cakes and offered a slice to anyone who happened by.
By WALTER NICHOLLS
Published December 21, 2003
When unexpected guests dropped by, no matter what the holiday, my Irish mother always had six or more vintage fruitcakes at the ready. On Christmas Day or a sweltering July afternoon she served thin slices of dense, fruit/nut/spice cake to anyone who would accept them.
Some cakes were mere months old, others no telling how old - a decade perhaps. My cousin James called the collection Auntie Anne's "fruitcake library."
In those days, at our Washington-area family home, it was not unusual to see six cousins sitting about enjoying soda bread with plenty of butter and shrimp cocktail accompanied by a stiff drink.
If more people dropped by unannounced, fruitcake was mother's emergency ration.
In an unchanging entertaining ritual, first the kettle was put on a back burner for tea. Small, gold-edged bone-china plates were wiped of dust. Then mom headed to the mahogany sideboard in the dining room and knelt beside a cupboard door in a moment of private reverie.
Some people collect Santas. Fruitcakes were her thing, an obsession that none of her children thought was particularly peculiar. Out came a stack of assorted round, festive red and green metal tins embossed with holly leaves or tree ornaments.
The only way to determine the contents of a tin was to pop it open.
One tin, more than likely, would contain her own homemade cake - a rich, dark, Irish-style whiskey-soaked fruitcake studded with golden raisins, glazed cherries and candied lemon rind. Another might harbor a prized stout-flavored cake hand-carried from Ireland, often topped with a layer of pale yellow marzipan, hardened white icing and a silver dragee or two.
In assorted shades of brown to black, in textures from dry to sticky, there were neighbors' baking triumphs (and failures) as well as cousins' excellent cakes alongside standard-issue bakery fare and, perhaps, one fruitcake ordered from monks by mail.
All were round with a hole at the center. I found the darkest cakes - ones that tasted of molasses with bits of prunes and walnuts - most appealing.
Loving preservation of all the cakes required the abundant use of wax paper and aluminum foil. Two crossed sheets of the paper that lined the bottom and sides allowed the cake to be easily lifted from the tin. A removable collar of crushed wax paper kept the cake from touching and sticking to the edge.
No cake went without a foil-wrapped cardboard round covered with a crucial Irish essential: a fancy, lace-cut paper doily.
But the most vital element in safeguarding cakes from the ravages of time had to do with the hole in the center. That's where she placed a shot glass that was filled and refilled when needed with Irish whiskey. Slowly, over time, the cakes absorbed the liquor, and the boozy moisture content was maintained. The good cakes were replenished. The common cakes took on a heady aroma for the first time.
As Christmas approached each year, the ritual of the fruitcake escalated. There was a proper flow to maintain. New cakes would arrive and replace wizened stumps long past their prime. Tins were cleaned of crumbs.
And most important, mom evaluated her collection to ensure that there would always be a pleasing variety for unexpected guests in the fruitcake library.
