I may have told a fair few people already, but I have a growing obsession with fruit cake. It all started when I went looking for my mother’s recipe for fruit cake and did not find anything that sounded right in all of the papers she left me. So, I started trying out different recipes to see if I could get close to what I remember. I made two different types of fruitcake last year. I have made two different types already this year, and plan to make one more because, of course, I have found/altered a recipe I now call ‘my’ fruitcake. Then I got an inspired idea to make a zine all about fruitcake: its history, its variations, etc. It is a rabbit hole I may never dig myself out of.

While I continue work on this zine that may end up becoming a full fledged book by volume of material alone, I thought I’d share this choice variation from the Brer Rabbit’s Modern Recipes for the Modern Cook (1940 Brer Rabbit Molasses).

This is far from the only recipe I found relying on salt pork. I also found a few mince meat recipes with salt pork. One with ground beef. I know the salt pork fat is standing in for shortening and is why the fruit cake can be made with so few eggs. But….I really don’t know what else to say.