Fruit lizzies. In our family you either love them or hate them. When I started this blog, this was the only recipe I had from my paternal grandmother, Pauline Callahan Malone. Little did I know that it wasn’t her recipe. So what follows is my search for the recipe and the stories that come with each step of the search.

FIRST STOP: the recipe box of my mother, Merle Mitchell

My mother loved fruit lizzies. Every year for as long as I can remember she would make batch after batch for the holidays. The recipe calls for whiskey, however my mom was raised strict Southern Baptist which means no alcohol amongst other things, Every Christmas my Dad would bring her a fifth of whiskey to make lizzies. When my Dad was gone, then the task fell to either my sister or I. We used to laugh that our grown mother would ask us to go to the liquor store for her as no respectable church woman can be seen buying alcohol. My favorite story about lizzies is once my mom was staying at my house for the holidays and baking. She asked for whiskey and I handed her a bottle of Jack Daniels and she said “now I know you have Maker’s Mark and that is much better in the lizzies than Jack so hand that over.” When I suggested that maybe it was time for her to start buying her own whiskey if she was going to get picky she said “oh no I could never.”

I found my grandmother’s recipe for fruit lizzies in my mother’s recipe box. This started me thinking about where my grandmother got this and so I started asking around.

SECOND STOP: memories of my Grandmother Malone

As a kid I remember going to my Grandmother Malone’s house and the sideboard being covered with desserts and metals tins. I would sneak the lids off the metal tins looking for peanut brittle or fudge but 2 of every 3 tins I opened were filled with fruit lizzies. This was a huge let down for me as fruit lizzies were not my favorite as a child. So I thought I would start by asking my cousins, aunts and uncles about grandma’s fruit lizzies.

Callie Malone Bertaud:  Well Aine, i’m not a fan of those Fruit Lizzies, but my Mom loved them!!! Every time we would visit for Thanksgiving, Grandma Malone would load my mom up with those in one of those pretty tins! She couldn’t never get enough of them!  blah! I don’t think any of us kids liked them. My mom also loved grandma’s fruit cake.. very similar.  I think one must be of a SEASONED age to appreciate the taste of aged alcohol soaking into fruit.

Anne Malone Abbott:  I remember those lizzies and fruit cake…I agree…blahhhhkkk.  I don’t know that I will ever reach that seasoned age to acquire that taste…now all the pies…bring them on!

Martha Johnson Malone:   I  love fruit Lizzie’s and fruit cake !!!!   I think it is a generational thing!   When we went to Grandmas for Christmas I couldn’t wait to see if there were Lizzie’s waiting!   Yummmm.  I ate myself sick and went home 10 pounds heavier!  The ingredients for fruit cake and fruit Lizzie’s are costly and time-consuming but Grandma always had the patience and the ingredients thanks to your Aunt Millie a lot of the time.

And then my cousin Bart provided the next clue to the puzzle with this:

Bart Malone:  Daddy still makes the lizzies at Christmas and after 50+ years I still don’t like them!!

THIRD AND FINAL STOP: Charles Malone…Uncle Charlie to me.

First let me explain that if you needed to know anything about family history, you could ask my Uncle Charlie. He was the best story-teller, and I should have asked him first about the lizzies but we kids have to do things the hard way. SO this is what my Uncle Charlie explained about where fruit lizzies come from:

 I still make them each Christmas.  The original recipe came from “Mama Ruth” Michaud, in fact JoAnn has a hand written copy from Mrs. Michaud.  Mrs. Michaud is your Aunt Suzanne’s mother. She was from Louisiana. But she gave that recipe to my mother, and since then we have all made them and love them.

And like that the mystery was solved. Grandma Pauline’s fruit lizzies were really Mama Ruth’s fruit lizzies.

Now the hardest thing about the holidays is that my Grandmother Malone, my mother Merle Mitchell and for the first time this year, my Uncle Charlie aren’t with us anymore. But the great thing about recipes is that they are capable of bringing back all these wonderful memories of things you thought you had lost.

I am about to pour that cup of whiskey into my own batch of fruit lizzies and imagine the smells from my grandmother’s kitchen, my uncle telling me his favorite story about how our family was almost rich, and my mom asking me to go to the liquor store for her. I am sure you have one of those recipes too. The kind that floods your being with memories. But if you don’t, you can borrow mine. There’s a whole lot of love in these fruit lizzies. Enjoy and happy holidays.

Mama Ruth’s Fruit Lizzies

Ingredients:

-1 lb butter or oleo

-4 eggs

-2 lbs cherries ( 1 red 1 green)

-2 lbs candied pineapple

-2 lbs raisins

-3 Tbsp milk

-5 c. flour

-1 c. whiskey

-1 1/2 c. brown sugar

-6 c. pecans

-3 tsp baking soda

-2 tsp salt

-1 tsp each cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, vanilla

Directions:

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs. Add whiskey, milk and vanilla. Sift all dry ingredients. Add 1 cup flour to fruit and pecans. Add to creamed mixture and mix well. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased and floured cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for 15-20 minutes.