The Fruitcake That Tastes Like Grandma’s Christmas
Food Review by Gary Gardiner, The Westerville News
My favorite Christmas memories involve Santa bringing Grandma Arnie to our house. He’d pick her up from her home near Ocala and deliver her in his sleigh, quietly landing on the roof so as not to wake my brother, my sister, or me, and spoil the surprise.
I cared more about the food she brought than the gifts. It was all about the treats she somehow kept fresh during that high-altitude, wind-blown sleigh ride.
I remember not believing her when she said the sweets came from Santa’s elves. As the oldest, I knew better. Grandma made snowball cookies, fruitcake cookies, butter-iced sugar cookies, and pecan cookies. I’d eat at least one of each while they were still warm from the oven, as she transferred them from the cookie sheet to a serving plate. Sometimes, I had to sneak an extra one after Grandma warned there weren’t enough for everyone to have seconds.
My mother took on the mantle around the time I realized it was Dad, not Santa, who picked up Grandma after we had fallen asleep. That explained why Grandma’s hair was always perfect, showing no signs of an open-air flight with Santa.
Fruitcake cookies became the favorite among our family’s bakers and eventually turned into a holiday tradition. But snowballs, also known as Mexican wedding cookies, eventually took the top spot. Our kids preferred the immediate sweetness of powdered sugar, followed by buttery dough and crunchy pecans, over candied cherries and raisins.
Snowballs are wonderful. The burst of powdered sugar, the crunch of the dough, and the snap of the pecans please both tooth and palate.
Here is where I become disagreeable. Fruitcake is king. Long live fruitcake!
Claxton’s Fruitcake deserves a spot in the Hall of Fame for flavor, texture, and price. I paid $4.99 for a one-pound Claxton Fruitcake at Kroger. At the same time, I picked up a one-pound Benson’s Holiday Fruitcake for $5.99. A 12-ounce Market District cake (Benson’s Old Home flavor under a different name) cost $9.95. A 28-ounce monster of a cake, Benson’s Old-Fashioned Round Fruit and Nut Cake from Meijer, was $13.99.
In all the cakes, the main ingredients, raisins, candied cherries, and flour, top the ingredient list.
Claxton’s is the exception. Orange peel ranks second, and papaya third, giving the cake a bright, citrusy edge and a mellow sweetness you don’t typically expect. It offers a distinctive Southern twist, reminiscent of something borrowed from a church potluck or a grandmother’s handwritten recipe card.
The papaya adds moisture, but Claxton’s cakes tend to crumble as they travel from plate to mouth, with bits ending up in laps, on chairs, the floor, and occasionally, in a bra.
Benson’s and Collin Street Bakery cakes tend to be gummy, making them more difficult to tear into bite-sized pieces. Still, all the Benson’s cakes were good, serviceable substitutes if there’s no Claxton’s to be had.
Here's the bad part. I have more Benson’s than I’ll ever be able to eat. Willing to trade for Claxton’s or Snowballs.
The Green Grape Report
Food Review by Gary Gardiner, The Westerville News
Kroger, Meijer, and Market District
Brand – Various
Price – $2.49 to $5.99 a pound
The Review
Buying green grapes is confusing this time of year.
Over the past two weeks, I’ve seen several varieties across the major Triad grocery stores: $5.99 for a one-pound clamshell of Autumn Crisp; three-pound bags of the deplorable first picks from Peru; a three-pound clamshell of Sweetum, the Peruvian attempt at Autumn Crisp; and PLU 3498 grapes from IFG, also from Peru.
Nothing quite matches the flavor, crispness, sweetness, and price of Autumn Crisp in November, but newer Peruvian varieties like Sweetum come surprisingly close in consistency.
Here’s what I do. Buy all four varieties in the smallest packages available. Strip them from their stems and toss them into a single bowl that fits in your refrigerator.
When eating, give the bowl a shake before reaching in for a single grape. Slowly. Feel its shape. How firm is it? Check the color and texture. Roll it in your hand. Gauge the heft. Don’t put it in your mouth yet. Take a bite, slicing it in half. Look at the piece in your hand as you begin to chew the other half. Do the taste and texture match what you see in the bitten piece? Which sensation becomes dominant: flavor or texture? Consider what you’ll study next: heft, texture, taste, or color.
Eventually, your sampling centers on one variety. Maybe it’s the shape or size. Perhaps the crispness of the first bite, or the texture of the bitten half. This melange of sensations may draw you toward a favorite. A variety you know by feel, not by name. Not by price or country of origin. Not by varietal.
Shopping for grapes gets easier after repeated sampling from this bowl’s random selection. You’ll start to recognize the best-tasting varieties by sight and feel alone. No need to sneak a sample.
The Westerville News is a reader-supported publication by Gary Gardiner, a lifelong journalist who believes hyper-local reporting is the future of news. This publication focuses exclusively on Westerville—its local news, influence on Central Ohio, and how surrounding areas shape the community.
Explore more hyper-local reporting by subscribing to The Hilliard Beacon, Civic Capacity, Marysville Matters, The Ohio Roundtable, Shelby News Reporter, This Week in Toledo, and Into the Morning by Krista Steele.
