Lifting the Heavy Loaf of History

Photos by Donna Campbell

Food Pilgrim followers proclaimed deep affection for the topic of peaches earlier this year, and now I predict that we will strike another fervent chord. This time the topic is fruitcake, the perennial punching bag of Christmas cuisine.

To many, fruitcake is the doorstop at hell’s kitchen. Yet the garish, Jello colors of candied fruit still show up in special displays at grocery stores come Thanksgiving, while those human squirrels who have a yen for the odd, musty flavor of black walnuts will go to great lengths to find and crack their own for fruitcakes. Other advocates prepare for the season by stashing away an extra fifth of brandy, bourbon, or both, not just for eggnog, but for the weekly baptism of the cakes which must be soaked in the sauce to achieve their best texture by Christmas.

According to historical sources, leftover fruitcake got its start when it was placed in Egyptian tombs as sacred snacks for the dead. The amazing durability of those cakes was proven by archeologists centuries later. Had the cakes been consumed, we never would have found them!

By contrast, The Oxford Companion to Food claims that fruitcake is actually  a British specialty only dating back to the Middle Ages, when dried fruit made its way west from the Mediterranean. By the 18th century, recipes were labor intensive, often calling for 20 egg yolks per cake, which were to be beaten for a half hour. Eggs, they said, helped the cake to keep longer. But why keep the cake? Why not eat the cake?

Okay, so let’s just say it’s an acquired taste and always has been.

I did not grow up loving fruitcake, but it was always there at Christmas. A certain bakery in a tiny Georgia town, which shall go nameless, was the source of all the fruitcakes of my childhood. They came in red and white boxes--little loaves, no liquor. The bakery’s entrepreneurial owner had landed on a unique distribution system for his seasonal product. He found that he could enlist an army of civic-minded citizens far beyond his storefront to order cases of his cakes wholesale. In turn, these nonprofit groups sold them retail to raise money for various charities. The loaf’s taste was less important to some than the good deeds to be performed from the proceeds. So, there it was, every year, the narrow box waiting under the Christmas tree in one or more households in my family. Sometimes it was still there after all the other gifts had been unwrapped.

My fruitcake of choice nowadays comes from the Campbell sisters, the great granddaughters and great great grandnieces of Effie Blanche Walker Waters of Mooresville, North Carolina. The women assemble on the Friday after Thanksgiving to follow Effie’s handwritten recipe.

They put on matching red aprons decorated with patches of fabric from Effie’s quilts. They chop fruit and nuts for hours. They use very big stainless steel mixing bowls.

The recipe is not simple. A single batch calls for a dozen eggs, 3 cups of sugar, 4 cups of plain flour, 3 teaspoons of baking powder, and a pound each of butter, raisins, currants, candied citron, dried cherries, pineapple pieces, figs, dates, pecans, and walnuts (black and English in a 1:2 proportion). There are also some ordinary spices added, as pans are greased and the oven is preheated. Though the family’s cherished and tattered recipe lists these ingredients in Effie’s cursive hand, at the bottom someone has added instructions to bake for two hours at 325 degrees. Effie cooked with a wood stove, a much less reliable science. The paper also explains that Effie christened her cakes (the recipe makes two big ones) with grape juice. She was married to a Methodist minister, after all. An aunt suggests moistening with peach schnapps, ending with: Keep cakes well wrapped.

The mixing, the ingredients, and the missing Santa’s boot earring.

Over the years, the Campbell sisters have had their challenges. One year a small Tupperware cap was feared to have disappeared into the batter, but it was never found. Another year, their mother Sara’s wedding band went missing. It was found a year later stuck to the underside of a saltshaker that had sat unused in the log cabin where they made cakes. This year, an earring my own mother had made in the shape of Santa’s boot and gifted to one of the nieces has not yet been found. It has become customary, given these misplacements, to bite gingerly into any and all slices of Campbell fruitcake.

These cakes—10 hefty ones this year, divided into halves and quarters—will be judiciously shared among ranking relatives and friends, but only after it has been determined that they have sufficiently cured. The cakes have been distributed among several households, swaddled in aluminum foil between their ablutions, and babied like Jesus at nativity. Wise men dare not peek or sneak a bite ahead of time.

There will be none left over. Guaranteed.