Fruitcake

Hailing from a large family in Monroeville, Alabama, Marie Rudisill (1911-2006) was Truman Capote's doting aunt, an energetic family memoirist and writer, and a fruitcake fan. She was winner of the 2001 Jack Daniel Lifetime Achievement Award of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

Fruitcake is a jaunty little collection of heirloom fruitcake recipes selected by Marie Rudisill from a nineteenth-century family farm journal owned by Sook Faulk, a cousin of Rudisill and Truman Capote, who immortalized Sook in his novella, A Christmas Memory. Rudisill, made famous as "The Fruitcake Lady" on Jay Leno's Tonight Show, aims to elevate the much-maligned reputation of what she calls "the queen of cakes" in this book, which features 23 enticing recipes, including Peacock Fruitcake, Chocolate Fruitcake, Civil War Fruitcake, Pore Man's Fruitcake, and Farmer's Fruitcake. These are interspersed with pithy facts about fruitcake, an excerpt from A Christmas Memory, bits of kitchen wisdom and baking tips, and charming family reminiscences, most of which feature Truman and Sook. With a new foreword by cookbook author Jean Anderson, this entertaining volume enriches our experience of southern cooking by raising up one of its least-trumpeted culinary traditions.