Feedback: Fruitcake, Dublin Coddle, Dinner at Sophie's

BL's interview with the Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, led to a conversation in the hallway outside our studio about Diamond District resturants and the Dublin Coddle recipe which grandma took with her to the grave.

Anyone out there got a good hand-me-down formula for Dublin Coddle? Share it, or any other recipes from the ancestors.

Email:
Subject: jamaican fruitcake
Just heard this caller inquiring about this -- there is a recipe for what sounds like exactly this cake -- a rich, black caribbean fruitcake -- in Laurie Colwin's book, Home Cooking (from 1988). I've always wanted to make it. :)
-JF

Subject: The Jamaican Fruit Cake
THe caller looking for the 'Fruit Cake' can find the recipe for hte dessert by googling the term "Black Cake" (as the colour of the cake is very close to black). It can be found nearly anywhere in Flatbush, Brooklyn, which is a West Indian enclave.
-DD

Subject: The Lead Cake
I had that cake in Little Cayman, West Indies in 1990, and it blew my
mind. The cook created it in an outdoor oven built in sand. Heavy as
lead. Delicious.
-AG

Subject: fruitcake not jamaican
Fruit cake is a commonwealth thing. Australians always have fruit cake at this time of year. AND we have fruit pudding after Xmas dinner. (Of course we also have shrimp and oysters because it's 100 degrees) Oh.. do I miss it.
-PC

Subject: Dinner at the block grandmother's house
My parents have lived in the same house on 10th Street in Park Slope for
27 years. Sophie Stoll, who lived two doors down until her death last
November, lived on the block from 1953 on. Every child on this block grew
up with Sophie as 'Aunt' or 'Grandma' Sophie as our babysitter, and every
child over 10 here can remember going to Sophie's house for dinner at
least once a week, even when we were well past the age of needing a
babysitter. Sophie's food was anything but exceptional -- usually
Raviolli out of a can, or Gordon's Fish sticks on Friday (no meat on
Fridays, of course, whatever Vatican II might say) -- but those meals are
something that all of us, now in our twenties and thirties, share, as
shown by the fact that there were more than 20 of us at her funeral.

But Sophie also brought the community together in a different way. People
always forget that in this community there are very many old people, many
of whom live on fixed incomes. Whenever we held a block party or get
together, the leftovers would always go to Sophie, who would bring them to
the local chruch and distribute them to the local elderly.
-SD