My grandmother on my mother’s side, the widowed commander of a brood of six children, was presented with the daily task of staying afloat on a very limited budget.
She rose to the challenge, stretching every morsel of food and inch of fabric to cover the demands of her family. Her resourcefulness truly shined every December, when she created low-cost alternatives to the usual holiday fare.
As a tribute to my late grandmother, my Mama still prepares her “unbaked fruit cake,” a sticky-sweet mishmash of condensed milk, vanilla wafers, and candied fruit, formed into a loaf and left to harden on the counter for several weeks.