Home > Table Talk > Archives > 2008 > November > 20
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Proustian Holidays
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At a family gathering the other night, my mother promptly announced that she would not be making fruitcake for the holidays this year. With one whisper, a 50-year-old tradition vanished.
At 83, the last year brought a battle with breast cancer, a near-fatal car accident (I was driving) and this New Year, she’ll need to undergo knee replacement surgery. She and my father found an “excellent” fruit cake at a bakery in Palestine, Texas, on their last trip, and she’s ordering the candied, nutty cake from them. Period.
But I’m so sad. I really don’t even like fruit cake that much, but I loved the tradition of her making it — it was like a scene straight out of Capote’s “Christmas Memory” — the Herculean effort that went into her fruitcakes. Unlike Capote’s “friend,” my mother never sent a fruitcake to the president, and certainly not to FDR. She made them mostly for my father and youngest brother, who adored them.
Every year about this time she would send my father for all the ingredients and when I was young I remember loving the rich, spice-laced batter licked from the end of a wooden spoon.
When I got home later that night, I cried. I will miss this part of her so much. And it’s hard for me to admit that she’s just not up to the task anymore. I even offered to make the cakes, but she and my father are resigned. And so a tradition ends.
It made me think of her Christmas fudge; her pound cake; her cornbread dressing — how I would miss them! Even as my sister and I take over the duties of the holiday kitchen, part of the reason these things are so dear, I know, is because my mother has been making them for us for so long.
I shared this with colleagues, and it seems I’m not alone: everyone had a certain something that they just can’t live without when it comes to the holidays: pepperoni yeast rolls are apparently a West Virginian tradition; juicy, crisp peach cobbler made by a great aunt who has passed; a grandmother’s lemon pound cake.
What holiday food tradition could you not live without?
Permalink | Comments (37) | Post your comment | Categories: Dining
