This reporter has avoided fruitcake — a holiday sweet known for its love-it or hate-it reactions — for years. My memories of it consist of holding a beautifully wrapped slice of stained glass and being disappointed. How could something so pretty taste so blech?
But times and tastebuds change, so this holiday season, I decided to give it another try.
The small brick of cake I brought home from a local bakery was heavy. I unceremoniously plunked it down on the table. My teenagers emerged from among the shadows at the first indication of food.
Fruitcake is as divisive as politics in some families, and I was about to find out where allegiances existed in my own.
I didn't mind it. However, after the first bite, my youngest said there was, ‘too much fruit.’
The other kid had a second slice, but some teenagers will eat anything.
A New York Times article by Russell Baker in 1983, states: “fruitcake is the only food durable enough to become a family heirloom.”
Baker wrote he had, as someone who detested fruitcake, inherited a recipe through a family member that originally belonged to his grandmother since 1880. It was given to him in their last will and testament.
He suspected that family member had detested him.
A Smithsonian Magazine article by Jesse Rhodes claims a version of fruitcake has been around since ancient Roman times, with the modern version being traced back to the Middle Ages. It became popular in the 18th and 19th centuries and was made for special occasions such as holidays and weddings.
It’s believed, said Rhodes, the cake fell out of favour in the “early 20th century when mass-produced mail-order fruitcakes became available, creating the regrettably classic image of a dry, leaden cake encrusted with garish candied fruits and pecans.”
St. Albert resident Dayle Pett — the keeper of the fruitcake recipe in her family — would agree with that sentiment. She thinks the stuff people buy at the store is “gross.”
She considered selling fruitcake locally this year. In August, she posted a poll on social media asking people if they would buy it.
Opinions were almost evenly split.
There were 134 votes for “Yes! Traditional fruitcake is where it’s at!”
While “Ew. Fruitcake doesn’t touch these lips,” took 124 votes.
“There's definitely a [fruitcake] following. But they're all in hiding I think because people are so passionate about how gross it is,” she said.
The cake is popular in her family — excluding her husband and children, who are not fond of the holiday treat.
Pett, though, has been eating fruitcake since childhood.
“They used to make fruitcakes for weddings. Everyone would get a piece of fruitcake wrapped in a doily after a wedding was done and then you’d put it under your pillow. We grew up with that tradition,” she said. “We always looked forward to getting fruit cake because it wasn't made very often.”
It wasn’t until Pett was an adult and took over the family tradition that she learned the reason why.
“It's very expensive. And it takes a while,” she said.
Pett makes the cakes in October when the fruit becomes available in stores. Once made, the cake must sit for a couple of months for the flavours to blend.
The fruits, butter, and eggs cost Pett about $100 and she can make around a dozen one- or two-pound loaves out of the batter. Once the cakes are finished, she delivers them to the family and friends who actually enjoy the cakes — starting with her grandparents, as that is where the recipe was derived.
“My mom's mom and my dad's mom were really good friends. Every year they would come together, and they would make fruitcake,” she said.
Pett suspects the recipe is a blend of both their histories.
“They just mastered the fruitcake recipe,” she said.
St. Albert resident Barbara Jane Sowak, however, doesn't echo Pett's love for the traditional dessert.
“I cannot stand fruitcake,” she said, adding she finds it too dense, and the texture is just not right for her.
“Oftentimes people refrigerate it, and the dough is very moist, and I don't like that at all. I just find it's got too much stuff in it. It's just overloaded with ingredients,” she said.
Sowak’s mother used to make fruitcake and she has fond memories of her parents, who are both gone now, cutely bickering over the treat.
“My late dad hated fruitcake and my mom would make it and he’d go, ‘Do I have to eat that stuff again?’
“She'd say, ‘Oh, Ross just a little piece.’ [Then he would say,] ‘I can't stand that stuff.’ It was so funny,” laughed Sowak.
Sowak said she has noticed there is no in-between when it comes to fruitcake. She much preferred the shortbread cookie called Brown-eyed Susan that her mother used to make.
“My point here is those were a cookie recipe that was kind of a family tradition that was very meaningful to myself and to mom as well.
“It's just memories … When I taste those cookies, [they bring] back so many Christmases of the past. I think, with fruitcake, that's why a lot of people enjoy it. They may not even love it that much. But when they taste that cake, they're thinking of family and traditions,” she said.
