Cook and Tell for Thanksgiving

Beginning with the first week of November, Southern kitchens begin their culinary preparation for the holidays. While the baking of fruit cake is paramount, other enticements are on the menu--most containing pecans, which is one of the most important tree crops grown in the South. That fruitcake does not stand alone is good because not everyone cares for fruitcake--a cake that is quite heavy with a very high caloric value.

In October, a few unripened green fruit of pecan trees start falling to the ground giving the birds an early feast. Soon thereafter, the squirrels begin storing these wonderful ripe brown nuts for their winter survival. It is estimated that one squirrel will consume 54 pounds of pecans in a year--so will some cooks!

From my doors, there is but a short walk in any direction to collect pecans as they fall from the trees. While walking my Bichon, if I find myself without a basket, they find their way into my pockets. And, sometimes I crunch two together and eat the meat while walking through the falling leaves. Ah, pecans. What a magnificient flavor.

According to legend, which is also a fact, pecans were introduced to settlers in Texas and Mississippi by the Indians who traded them for trinkets and tools. In this way, pecans moved from their native range to the eastern seaboard and ultimately wherever they would grow.

But now, let's embrace the spicy aromas of the season: mace, cinnamon, cardamon, ginger, nutmeg, vanilla and, of course, pecans. Out come my cookbooks obese with paper inserts--each paper with a story to tell.

During the Great Depression years, nothing in the kitchen was wasted. My grandmother made these marvelous little tarts from pastry scraps and pecans. I can hear her now saying, "Lee, I need some pecans." So out I ran with her pecan bucket to gather them from the cool earth.

We've all heard the expression, nutty as a fruitcake, but how did this idiom originate? Attempting to trace its genesis shed little light other than the adjective nutty being defined by the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms as meaning insane. From this, one could extrapolate the two as being similar by using the words--filled with nuts. One of my ancestors, who immigrated to the colony of South Carolina from the Pallatine in the 1700's, is said to have brought with her a favorite recipe which was later called Black Forest Tipsy Fruitcake.

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