Saturday, December 08, 2007 Fruitcake season By Ober Khok
HERE we go round the fruitcake musical chair game.
It starts with a number of players, with one key person first receiving a nicely wrapped layer of cake. From first sight, he or she knows it’s a fruitcake.
The sad thing that happens is that the cake gets passed on to another person, which removes one chair to sit on. The music continues, and I think you have a pretty good drift of what will happen next. To the fruitcake, that is.
Last year, Crystal, my niece, received a package containing the cake and she promptly gave it to Illustracio. She didn’t have the wisdom to give it a new wrapper. She was in that hurry to get rid of the cake.
She didn’t know that Illustracio doesn’t like fruitcake. He immediately took the cake to a friend of his and was relieved of the burden of having to eat something he doesn’t like.
This neighbor later said that she already had three fruitcakes sitting in her breadbox, so she sent off Illustracio’s cake to a good friend of hers: my Tita Blitte.
My aunt beamed with pleasure. Crystal, seeing the familiar wrapper, blushed with shame. Being a fine girl, she told us of her crime. A confession is always good because it opens the door to forgiveness.
Obviously, it was my aunt who was the last person sitting on the “fruitcake” chair. It’s a good thing my aunt has a kind soul and creative culinary skills. She found many ways of convincing us that fruitcake is good to eat.
My aunt serves it as cake a la mode.
“You have to use vanilla ice cream. As it is, fruitcake has a dominant taste which you should counter with something plain and cold.”
Another thing she taught us is to eat the cake, not in big bites but in dainty ones.
“You never eat the World in big slices, right? So it is with fruitcake. It’s a very respectable cake, with lots of fruits and nuts, and character due to the rum.
“Life, Obz, is to be appreciated in little bites. If you do the contrary, it will overwhelm you. The rum in the cake is not to intoxicate you, but to preserve a good thing. So it is in your life. Never let fame or success go into your head.”
That’s my aunt. Always finding morsels of wisdom, even in something many people hate.
To prove her point that fruitcake must be eaten in small doses, she slices them into finger-length servings to got with our iced lemon tea.
For variety, she cubes them and arranges them on a pretty platter along with cubed cheese, and fruit slices to pair with our Christmas wine.
I have heard so many derogatory comments about fruitcakes to the point that I pity the giver. However, I do understand if people struggle to acquire a taste for this rum-laced Christmas icon.
My neighbor Illustracio admits that he is no fan of the cake. “I don’t like,” is his review.
It sounds very final, no room for negotiations. Why do people avoid this heady cake?
Joy, my niece, said it is because it has nuts and you expect it to melt in your mouth, not coat your mouth with a flavor you can’t identify.
“It’s the rum,” Uncle Gustav said. Count on him. He likes fruitcake, but knows that drunken cake contradicts the standard idea of how a cake should taste.
Fortunately I have no quarrel with fruitcake. I can eat it any which way.
