Fruitcake, anyone?


		Friday, Dec. 3, 2004

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Fruitcake, anyone?

Rick Ryckeley is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at saferick@bellsouth.net.

Everyone has their own little traditions they enjoy during the holiday season which makes this time of the year very special. Some watch football from sun up to sun down. Some take the time to help the less fortunate amongst us and feed the homeless. Others fry a turkey or buy a Honey Baked Ham. One of the traditions enjoyed around our household is cooking all day and having a huge meal eaten from the fine china that’s only brought out of the cabinet twice a year.

I’m sure you have the same china around your house. Beautiful plates and stemware handed down from generation to generation, always on display and protected behind the huge glass doors of oversized china cabinets, protected against everything, even dust. To a kid, it’s the ultimate “look but don’t touch.” Each generation is afraid to use the stuff because they are afraid they will be the ones who are remembered for breaking it fro generations to come. You can only bring it out of its protective case twice a year; unless, of course, someone gets married. And when it is used, it can’t be put in the dishwasher. Nope, things could not be that easy.

After it’s used, all that delicate china and stemware must be hand washed, lest something gets broken. If broken, the pieces must be carefully glued back together so The Wife doesn’t find out. Not that anything like that happened around our house during Thanksgiving this year. By the way, Super Glue works great for mending stemware, just don’t get too much on your fingers; trust me, it will stick you to anything. No wonder people only want to use china and stemware twice a year; the stuff is dangerous.

But I digress. The topic at hand is traditions, not my trying to get unstuck from the TV remote. Some traditions started long ago have been passed down throughout the years; without these the holidays wouldn’t seem the same. Let us examine one of the most famous of all holiday traditions: the fruitcake. Grandmother Tullie’s fruitcake, to be exact.

Who first thought it was a good idea to see how much candied fruit one could cram into a block of nasty-tasting brown cake anyway? Except for one person in my family and 80-year-old people, I have never seen anyone eat a complete slice of fruitcake. Oh, I’ve seen many people try over the years, but they always do the same thing: take one bite then quickly find the trashcan. No one in their right mind would eat a complete slice; no one ‘cept my dad, that is, which explains a lot of things. The man simply loves the stuff.

Now being the good boy that I was while growing up, always wanting to please my parents, I tried many times to choke down some of the heavy brown cake crammed-packed with unrecognizable multi-colored fruit, but I never could. And as an adult, I’ve been on the receiving end of a fruitcake giver and have accepted the gift graciously. I always can use another doorstop or wheel cock. But it wasn’t until this year that I understood why my father loved the stuff so much when we were growing up. The answer will surprise you as it did me. Having five kids, screaming and running around the house during the holidays will drive you to drink, or at least eat a lot of fruitcake. I’ll explain.

Every year Dad would have two slices of Grandmother Tullie’s fruitcake after Thanksgiving dinner and two slices after every dinner straight through until Christmas. Never could figure it out why he liked it so much. Just thought it was one of those old folks things. You know, like watching the evening news, drinking eggnog with the strong stuff in it or watching The Laurence Welk Show. Nope. Seems dear old Dad had a friend out in the country who soaked Grandmother Tullie’s nasty-tasting brown fruit doorstop in white lightning for a month.

During this holiday season, pass on the holiday traditions handed down in your family to your kids. Whether it be using the china and stemware only brought out of the huge china cabinet twice a year, seeing how much wrapping paper it takes to wrap up your little brother (it took three rolls to wrap up twin brother Mark), or even trying a piece of nasty-tasting brown cake crammed with hard to recognize multi-colored fruit, all are things they will remember when they get older. Who knows? Maybe one of them will grow up and write about them in the newspaper.

Now as to what to do with the fruitcake your relatives gave you at Thanksgiving: surprise them at Christmas by actually serving it, shall we say, doctored up a little bit. Just be careful whom you serve it to. Make sure they’re over 21, and don’t try to drive home. The arresting officer will never believe that all they had after dinner was Grandmother’s fruitcake.