Oldies

Sparkling lights on a cold winter night. The sweet piney smell of fresh greenery wreaths hung on the door. Songs of good tidings by ruby-nosed carolers. A kitchen enveloped in the delicious aromas of the holidays. And thanks to the popularity of all things vintage, such as holiday recipes as beef Wellington, fruit stollen, buche de noel, crown roasts and figgy pudding are back on holiday menus.

Riding a wave of retro, where fashion, home décor and the art of cooking herald back to the ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, there is a desire to return to holiday recipes from our parents or grandparent’s generation. Perhaps it’s due to the slow food movement or the popularity of shows such as “Mad Men,” but embracing vintage holiday foods, perhaps with a modern twist, is way to transcend the mainstream and embrace these timeless holiday classics.

But let’s stick to desserts and skip the cookies.

“The worst possible Christmas gift is a fruitcake,” said Johnny Carson on an episode of the Tonight Show. “There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other, year after year.”

Ouch. There’s even a national Fruitcake Toss Day, the first Saturday in January, which adds injury to the insult of this potentially-delicious dessert.

You heard me right. Homemade fruitcake, minus the gross cherries and candied fruits leftover from the 1950s, is full of nuts, dried fruit, rich spices including nutmeg and cloves and soaked with good bourbon or rum. My friend Steve Burgess said he started eating fruitcake “just to be ornery,” but soon found he liked it. You can imagine his joy when he and his wife, Diane, found fruitcake on the menu at the Crux Fermentation Project last year while enjoying a seasonal beer dubbed Banished Freakcake, named in honor of the seasonal cake.

Not everyone shares Steve’s passion about fruitcake, but a good recipe for homemade fruitcake is Chef Monte’s Old South Fruitcake will readjust your “life without fruitcake” attitude. More cakelike than brick-like, the recipe calls for dried fruit and chopped nuts, not candied fruit which feels a little better on the tongue.

If your fear of fruitcake is too steep, then figgy pudding — made famous in the popular holiday song from the West Country of England “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” — might move up on your dessert list. Doled out by lords of the manor to carolers on Christmas Eve, hence the line “Now bring us some figgy pudding,” this treat is easy to make today with dates, dried figs, butter, dark chocolate, eggs and flour and covered with a warm sauce of sugar and heavy cream or ice cream. Now that’s something to start singing about.

Another dessert option is stollen — a cakelike fruit bread made with yeast dough, candied fruits, nuts, spices and rum. Traditionally eaten in Germany during the Christmas season, this heavy bread sometimes has a marzipan rope in the middle. My mom used to make this tasty, sweetened bread while celebrating her German heritage during the holiday season. Dense and delicious.

If you have some French in your heritage or just want some chocolate running through your veins, try Buche de Noel — a flourless chocolate cake rolled with chocolate whipped cream. Shaped to resemble a Yule log with a bark-like texture created on the outside using some of the chocolate whipped cream. A little dated — who likes their food resembling cellulose? — but yummy.

Although I asked a few other friends about traditional holiday recipes, there were spotty reports. Health-conscious cooking and a trend toward less time in the kitchen seemed to prevail. But the joys of cooking together or bringing a specialty dessert to a gathering of friends and family is reason enough to go a little retro this holiday season and whip up one of these delicious holiday dishes.