RIVER CITY JOURNAL: FRUITCAKE IS ROYALTY OF SEASON

Something needs to be said about holiday foodstuffs.

First, no one ever makes enough of that gelatin conglomeration of cranberries, fruit and nuts you like so much for Thanksgiving dinner.

But that isn't all.

Where are the fruitcakes?

Once upon a time, you didn't care for that cranberry stuff. But that was a long time ago, and every Thanksgiving you have to pace yourself so others at least get a taste of the special blend of chopped goodies in raspberry-flavored gelatin.

When others are manufacturing weighty sandwiches of leftover turkey to be eaten with a side of cold dressing, you are looking for a bigger bowl for the cranberry stuff. "Aren't you going to have some turkey with that?" someone always asks. No, you say, you're not very hungry after that big meal.

Baloney. You are starving, but all you want is cranberry stuff, which probably has a fancier name than "stuff." You get the picture.

As soon as the last bite of cranberry stuff is consumed, your thoughts turn to fruitcakes. In the good old days, there were fruitcakes galore between Thanksgiving and Christmas. They were given as gifts and graciously received, until someone started all those nasty rumors about fruitcakes.

You know, how nobody likes fruitcake and how there is really only one fruitcake in the world, and it just keeps being given away, passing from one household to another. Or how fruitcakes are made of sawdust and stale raisins with a little bit of artificial rum flavoring.

Obviously, a good many poor souls have never had a real fruitcake, the kind that makes your tastebuds quiver (can they do that?) and your stomach growl with happy anticipation. These are fruitcakes that are moist and full of sweet fruit mortared with a powerfully rich batter and then baked slowly and lovingly, with a few drizzles of real rum on a cheesecloth wrapping to keep the cake moist and flavorful during storage. As a matter of fact, a properly made fruitcake tastes better after it has been aged awhile.

And nuts. A truly great fruitcake is crammed with pecans and walnuts, with whole halves studding the surface like jewels in a diadem fit for holiday royalty. Not chopped nuts or broken pieces of nuts or (heaven forbid) nut flavoring, but real, jumbo-sized nuts that beg to be pulled from the fruitcake confection and munched all by themselves.

As for the fruit in a fruitcake, let imagination be your guide: candied fruit plus raisins and figs and dates and currants. Your mother even makes a particularly good fruitcake using candy orange slices.

(ital) When life slips past

this mortal coil, a taste

of heaven is in the last

bite of noble fruitcake made

not in haste

but with supreme care paid

to every crumb and morsel,

fortifying the spirit

for God's time: life immortal. (end ital)

Not even poetry can do justice to a well-made fruitcake. So why are so few of them made anymore?

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.