A Christmas Memory

A few years ago I watched a TV special "A Thanksgiving Memory" that was written by Truman Capote, one of my favorite writers. Since then I have read the story and watched the TV special a few more times, enjoying it more each time.


I identified with this story about the little boy and his aunt gathering things she needed to make a lot of fruit cakes for family and friends.


You see, we did the same thing when I was growing up in the country and we were living with my paternal grandparents, Mama and Papa Wilson in the Curtis Community. It seems that from early November up until Christmas Day the women were always preparing food for the holidays.

I suppose the fruit cakes required the most work. First they boiled grapefruit and orange peelings in sugar and water to make them crystalized. We didn't have dates so they used dried figs. We got really big Muscat raisins from the grocery store in Elba and we had to hand pick the big seeds so the raisins could be used in the cakes. The Muscat is a very special type of raisin. It is quite large, blackish in color, very sweet and quite sticky. How I would love to have some of those big raisins again. They were in bunches like grapes, and we were told they were dried grapes. 

I went online to see if I could find those delicious raisins and found this info: Muscat raisins are available year round from www.sunmaid.com. Go to Gift Shop link, then Bulk Fruits and find #62: Muscat Raisins, in a five pound box for about $22 US plus shipping. Or call Sunmaid at 800-786-6243.)


Muscat Raisins are large, oversized, dark, meaty, sweet raisins with a full fruity flavor.

We started cracking and picking out pecans early in November, to use for the cakes. Then the day came when they made fruitcakes. They steamed them in the huge pressure cooker they used for canning in the summer. Oh, and they put some of Papa Wilson's homemade fox grape wine in the cakes.

Once the fruitcakes were finished baking, they would be wrapped in a large white flower sacks, and the cloth was then soaked with wine. The cake was put in the "ice box" on the back porch to keep it moist and cool.


It was so much fun getting ready to make holiday cakes. Another cake they baked was called a Lane Cake. The icing was made with sugar, butter, and eggs. The nuts and raisins were ground in the food chopper and added to the icing. And this also had "spirits" in the icing. Today, this is my favorite cake at Christmas time.


Daddy would bring a couple of coconuts home from the store for mother to make his favorite coconut cake. My job was to crack the coconut, drain the juice, and peel the coconut after removing the hard shell. I did not like to grate the coconut as I always grated my knuckles in the process.


My favorite cake at the time was called a Lemon Cheese Cake. The cake was like a sponge cake, made with egg whites. The yolks were used to make the lemon curd used as icing. I was surprised when visiting my sister in London a few years ago that you could buy jars of lemon curd to eat with shortbread cookies. It tasted exactly like the lemon cheese my mother made. Maybe that's where the recipe came from, a long time ago.


My other grandmother, Mama Smith, always made chocolate cakes at Christmas time, with thin boiled chocolate icing that reminded me of fudge. And lots and lots of tea cake cookies.


Now at Christmas time, I have this feeling that I must get busy and start baking. I usually give my goodies away. Nobody likes fruit cake anymore. But Jim and I do. Our daughter-in-law in Texas always sends us one of those delicious Corsicana Fruit Cakes each year and we only eat a little at the time, making it last til spring! People who didn't grow up in Ala. have no idea what a Lane Cake is, and they think lemon cheese cakes are puddings - not cakes!


I'm so sorry my 5 granddaughters are missing out on this great experiece of "getting ready for Christmas" as we did long ago. What great memories I have of smelling the cakes baking, and the aroma of the wine as they opened the cloths to remove the cakes when it was time to eat them.


I guess their memories will be shopping at the mall, ordering things online, and ordering pizzas when getting home from shopping.


When they visit us during Thanksgiving or Christmas, they always want to see what's on the dessert table and they all find their favorites. I must get busy picking out pecans and start baking. Our youngest son and his 3 teen girls (one in college) will be coming from SC for Christmas this year. We can hardly wait.