FRUITCAKE...Magnificent and Maligned

    Yesterday that most Christmas of confections arrived in my mailbox. A fruitcake.  Hold it a minute, you say, Christmas was two weeks ago. Well, yeah, and this fruitcake was mailed four weeks before that but it went from Texas to France first before being redirected to Perth, Australia. But that's another story.  Can we get on? This slice is winking at me.
     Now if you,  gentle reader, are in North America the very word "fruitcake" tends to elicit a derisive snort. Oh, what a shocking reputation it has as a Z-grade foodstuff. The universal holiday whipping boy. Everybody has a family story or joke of how the same indestructible-in-a-nuclear-blast blob of dubious origin is now used as a doorstop or has been passed from relative to relative for the past six years. Few confess in public to actually eating it. And I have to admit there are some very scarey versions being sold to an unwary public. I've tasted some of them. Ewwwww.

©Collin Street Bakery

      Contrary to this reaction is the one fruitcake receives in the hands of the British (or any of their colonies.) It's sold year round and happily served with tea. Family recipes are guarded jealously and the competition at bake-offs and shows is fierce. Such is a measure of its esteem that it is the traditional wedding cake in the British realm. Even I'm chuckling at that one.
      The well-traveled fruitcake that was sent to me came from my eldest brother's favorite bakery in Texas. He swears by the Collin Street Bakery and is happy to spread the good news. And it is tasty even if the the company is confused between Paris and Perth. It makes the journey intact. (O.K., no mean-spirited jokes here, thank you.)

©Gethsemani Farms

      I don't remember how I came upon my favorite but its charms are apparent as soon as one opens the lid.  This fruitcake is made by monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani  in Trappist, Kentucky and  have been around since 1848.  (No mean-spirited jokes here either, thank you.) The secret to their success (besides prayer)?  Each cake is soaked in Kentucky bourbon.  Jim Beam to be exact. To answer that question now in your mind: the inventory of bourbon is very carefully monitored.  In keeping with tradition (I married an Australian)  I ordered this for my wedding as a secondary or 'groom's cake'.
      It's a funny and absolutely true story-- if a bit colorful-- about this order.  It hadn't arrived early, so Kev was dispatched to pick it up at the post office before he drove up for the wedding.  His far-from-refined Aussie accent was unfamiliar to the postal worker and I'm afraid there was a bit of a communication gap.
       Kev:  "Oiym heer to pik up a coiyk."
       Postal lady:  "Excuse me, sir?"
       Kev: "Oiym heer to pik up a coiyk.  Should be whyting for myee."
       Postal lady: "Sir, we do not use that kind of language around here!"
       Kev: "Oi?"
     It was a few moments before  each understood that Kev was there to pick up a fruitcake, not a female of a certain religious faith.  He started to speak a bit more clearly after that.