Guest Post, Mysteries

Guest Chick: Catriona McPherson

We are so excited to welcome back our dear friend, the multi-award-winning Catriona McPherson, author of the Dandy Gilver series, Lexy Campbell series, and numerous stand alones. And what a perfectly delicious holiday topic! Enjoy…  

Make Them Eat Cake

There’s a clue right there on the jacket of SCOTZILLA, Last Ditch Mystery No.7, so it’s not a spoiler to say that the setting is Lexy’s wedding. The title is a strong hint about what kind of bride she turns out to be too. It was a lot of fun to write and one of the most enjoyable bits was the running joke about the wedding cake.

American friends, I have something to tell you. Wedding cake, in Britain, is fruitcake.

British friends, I have something to tell you. Fruitcake, in America, is funny.

Non-writing friends, I have something to tell you. The author doesn’t get final say on the jacket. (See above.)

I’ll deal with the first two bombshells in order. The third is too painful.

You know those slices of Elizabeth and Philip’s wedding cake that sell for thousands? Fruitcake. That slice of Victoria’s wedding cake that sold recently to someone who then tasted it? Fruitcake. Have you heard that, traditionally, the top tier of the wedding cake is kept for the first Christening, and wondered why the day after a British Christening isn’t called Stomach-Pump Day? The answer is: fruitcake. Fruitcake so full of booze that it’s preserved like a Damien Hirst cow. But slightly more appetising.

I’ve got a theory that the British public started to turn against Meghan Markle’s marriage to our scamp of a Prince Harry, not because she was older, American, an actress, and divorced (sneezewallissimpsonsneeze), but because she served weird white lemon and elderflower cake at the reception. I’m just kidding, of course: it was racism. But the cake was noted too.

And of course an American princess didn’t want fruitcake at her wedding! Like I said, fruitcake is comedy food in the US, especially at Christmas which is the only time anyone feels even remotely obliged to eat it. It’s even on jokey Christmas cards, like Brits have pictures of boiled sprouts. But why is fruitcake, Christmas cake, wedding cake, Christening cake such a joke here? I was completely mystified the first few years. Look at the Christmas cake Neil makes for us:

It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? Dark, moist and glistening, redolent of the port and sherry and whisky that the fruit has been soaked in for days on end, with a spritz of orange juice and a scrape of nutmeg, before the stirring and mixing begins. Then it bakes for four hours at a whisper of warmth and the kitchen fills with sumptuous scents. We don’t even ice/frost it. It would be a waste to mask any of its luxurious flavour.

It’s the centrepiece of the Christmas feast, first equal with the turkey. I tell you what it’s not. It’s not a dry lump of pale stodge with jump-scare day-glo “fruit” chunks, laced with monocarbium phosphate, potassium sorbate, emetium pukephate, zero alcohol (Puritans right there on the label!) and formed into the shape of a house-brick inside its plastic, for easy stacking. I put it to anyone who thinks they don’t like fruitcake but had only ever tasted examples from budget US supermarkets, to think again. Because, believe me, I’ve been there. 2010, I bought a pumpkin pie at WinCo, for our low-stakes Thanksgiving dinner. (Low stakes because it’s not so much Thanksgiving, for us, as it is Thursday.) People, it was bog awful. It was too sweet, a revolting texture – whether hot, warm, ambient or chilled, the most synthetic thing I had ever eaten (since I hadn’t yet tasted Red Vines) and it made the bin stink when I chucked it out. So I concluded that I didn’t like pumpkin pie.

Fast forward a couple of years to when I’ve got some friends and I’m the piemaker for Thanksgiving for twenty Americans, who really care. (It’s not just Thursday.) I made berry pie, chocolate Armagnac pie and pumpkin pie, as instructed. And I ate a slice of the chocolate and a slice of the berry and was relieved that the others seemed to like the pumpkin too. This went on for years. I can’t remember why I finally tasted my own pumpkin pie, round about 2018.

Revelation! It was delicious! And, as soon as I turned my brain cell on, I started to laugh. I’d never say I hated coffee because of gas-station coffee. I’d never say I hated hotdogs because of Ikea hotdogs. Why on earth had I decided pumpkin pie was horrible because I couldn’t get a great one for $2.99 from a supermarket where Little Debbie is the chief patissiere.

So that’s my bid to get America loving fruitcake. Because it rests on the idea that people might be willing to spend three or four days and quite a lot of cash making a cake they don’t think they’re going to like, though, I reckon what I’m looking at here is: all the more for me!

If anyone does fancy it, I’ll send you Neil’s recipe, but you’ll have to convert the ounces and pounds to sticks and cups. I’m not offering my pumpkin pie recipe: it’s the one on the inside of the Libby’s label. So, instead of swapping recipes, you could always tell me what loathsome food you made at home for the first time and started loving. Talking about eating is second only to eating itself, imo.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hannukah, a Jolly Kwanzaa, a Cool Yule or, you know, Wednesday.

Cx

Serial awards-botherer, Catriona McPherson (she/her) was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US in 2010. She writes: preposterous 1930s private-detective stories; realistic 1940s amateur-sleuth stories about a medical social worker; and contemporary psychological standalones. These are all set in Scotland with a lot of Scottish weather. She also writes modern comedies about a Scot out of water in a “fictional” college town in Northern California. SCOTZILLA is book number seven of what was supposed to be a trilogy. She is a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime.

www.catrionamcpherson.com

37 thoughts on “Guest Chick: Catriona McPherson”

  1. I would love to have your fruitcake recipe!!!! I am American and I must confess that I love fruitcake. My mom used to make it, and in fact she made my brother’s wedding cake, and it was fruitcake. But sadly she did not (as far as I know) put any “spirits” into it. I can’t swear to it, as I was only 8 at the time. My parents never kept alcohol in the house so I just assume there was none in the cake.

    Anyway, I would LOVE to try a “real” fruitcake. And I can’t wait to read the new book! Happy Holidays!!! Carol

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    2. Carol, my mom loved my then-boyfriend-now-husband SO MUCH when she found out how much he liked fruitcake. I have to admit, she made one that was mighty tasty … drowning in booze. (The cake, not my mom.) Then when we moved to CO he took it upon himself to figure it out. And he did. I won’t go so far to say that it looked exactly like Neil’s, but it was pretty close!

      And Catriona, I’ve never made any loathsome food … not that I’d admit to, anyway! I will say that I used to have a list of xmas goodies I’d make every year. When the kids got older and we began paring down our holiday, they all told me—without any hesitation or concern for my feelings—to immediately jettison the raspberry meringues from our cookie plates. Apparently they never liked them! Did they eat them? Why, yes they did.

      Happy Holidays and enjoy that fruitcake!

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  3. Like Carol, I would love Neil’s recipe for fruitcake. There was a small Christmas pudding in the basket I ordered last year from Mrs. Nelson’s Gingerbread, a location my parents and I once visited in Grasmere, England, and has been a family favorite ever since. It was delicious!

    As to a food I once hated but now like, I’m that rare American who hated PB&J as a kid. While I still don’t like the two of them together, I’ve developed a new respect for peanut butter and even occasionally snack on it now!

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  4. Like Carol, I would love Neil’s recipe for fruitcake. There was a small Christmas pudding in the basket I ordered last year from Mrs. Nelson’s Gingerbread, a location my parents and I once visited in Grasmere, England, and has been a family favorite ever since. It was delicious!

    As to a food I once hated but now like, I’m that rare American who hated PB&J as a kid. While I still don’t like the two of them together, I’ve developed a new respect for peanut butter and even occasionally snack on it now!

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  5. Like Carol, I would love Neil’s recipe for fruitcake. There was a small Christmas pudding in the basket I ordered last year from Mrs. Nelson’s Gingerbread, a location my parents and I once visited in Grasmere, England, and has been a family favorite ever since. It was delicious!

    As to a food I once hated but now like, I’m that rare American who hated PB&J as a kid. While I still don’t like the two of them together, I’ve developed a new respect for peanut butter and even occasionally snack on it now!

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    1. Ellen, we had British friends who came to America and were appalled by pb&j. “A savory with a sweet? That’s bollocks!” But I felt the same way when I lived in England and was served beans and stewed tomahtos for breakfast. A right bloody mess that was!

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  6. Hi Catriona: What a delightful post! So glad you liked your pie.

    Had a similar situation here with pecan pie, though my husband was the one who made it. Now it’s a favorite and I can’t imagine the holidays without it.

    (However, glad to have abandoned the annual green bean casserole, ha.)

    Neil’s fruitcake ingredients look so pretty in the bowl. Happiest holidays to you both and thanks so much for visiting us today.

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    2. I made that casserole on year en route from Martinelli’s duty to my current pie-maker status. I almost lost the gig when I asked what pearl onions were, though.

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  7. Thanks for being here, Catriona! Yay on book 7 and bypassing that trilogy mark!

    Your kind of fruitcake is something I would try…

    I wasn’t a huge fan of Brussels sprouts growing up, but now that I roast them, the whole family happily eats their veggies.

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    3. I can’t on Brussels sprouts. Doesn’t matter how they’re cooked. Just can’t. (When I was about 5, my best friend’s mom sat between us at the dinner table and forced them into our mouths with a fork until we swallowed/gagged on them. Ah, the 60s.)

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  8. My best friend and I made dozens of small fruitcakes for Christmas presents for friends when we were about twelve–there was so much batter that we mixed it in a diaper pail (remember those huge white enamel ones?). And it was pretty darn good. Though I think one of the things we loved best was that we got to put all that rum into it….

    For a decent American version of fruitcake, Robin swears by Jane Parker, which you can order online. We got one last year and it wasn’t bad. Though I’m sure Neil’s is far, far better.

    Finally, as with Jen, I was not a fan of Brussels sprouts until I started roasting them–often with balsamic vinegar or maple syrup. Now–yum!

    Happy everything to you, Catriona, to my beloved Chicks, and to all reading this!

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  9. Thank you so much for having me back, Chicks. I am putting Neil’s – actually Rose Elliot’s! – cake recipe on Facebook, set to public view, since I realise now that I can’t attach a pic here.

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  10. I don’t think I’ve ever had “real” fruitcake. I figured there had to be a better version, but all I’ve ever seen is the crappy store-bought version. Intriguing.

    I think the first thing I made for myself where I realized “Hey, this can be good” is fish. Growing up, fish meant frozen breaded fish patties (which is just pieces of fish) and fish sticks. The first time I made a salmon fillet it was quite the eye-opener.

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    2. I heard this episode of the Food Programme on BBC R4 last week (such a failed immigrant!) where they said that over 90% of the fish eaten in the UK was five species: cod, haddock, salmon, prawns (shrimp), and tuna!

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  11. Catriona, we’re so happy you’re visiting Chicks today! Scotzilla is already on my TBR. Have to say, I rolled with laughter over your fruitcake stories. I was introduced to fruitcake christening/wedding fare when attending family events in Ireland. My SIL iced the event cakes with a stiff white icing (fondant?) But I simply could not believe that they were left out in the damp on the sideboard for…well, a very long time. I should add that I grossed them all out with my PB&Js (they had such lovely raspberry jam tho). And then…I was almost kicked out of the country when I made the innocent mistake of icing my tea.

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    1. Royal icing – invented (or maybe popularised) by Queen Victoria’s wedding cake baker. It sets like concrete, doesn’t it? I think the cake lasts because it’s so full of alcohol and sugar.

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      1. Ha! “Frost” in the icy sense sounds very romantic for iced tea. But in the frosting/icing sense maybe not. I live in NH so “frost” is the permabrain.

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