Years ago, Maxine was my roommate. She's now living in East Texas, which is pecan country, and of course this cake has a lot of pecans in it. The recipe is headed, "From the kitchen of Maxine from Mary Alcorta, from Mrs. Joy who's name is changed." So you see this is the kind of fruitcake whose recipe gets passed from one person to another and treasured by each recipient.

     When I first married Bill Blackwell, I was amazed to learn that he despised Christmas fruitcakes. Then a few years ago I tasted a "bought" fruitcake -- all the fruitcakes of the first fifty years of my life having been delicious homemade ones. That bought fruitcake was terrible. Inedible.

     The moral seems to be: avoid bought fruitcakes. (I can't say for sure, never having had one, but the fruitcakes produced by monks and high-priced purveyors must be all right, or they couldn't earn a living with them.)

     But here, quibbles aside, is the real, wonderful, homemade thing.

Ingredients and method:

1-1/2 lbs. dates, cut small
1 lb. candied pineapple, cut small
1 lb. candied cherries, cut in half
4 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 cups pecan halves

     Pull apart candied fruit mixture with hand and set aside. Beat eggs until foamy; add sugar to eggs slowly. Add egg mixture to fruit mixture. Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add pecans to flour mixture. Stir the flour and pecan mixture a little at a time into the egg and fruit mixture.

     Grease and flour a tube pan or 2 small loaf pans, lined with foil and sprayed with cooking oil. (Or line the tube pan with brown buttered paper.) Press fruitcake mixture into pan firmly, so as to pack well. Bake at 275 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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