The End of the Carson Fruitcake Myth
Grandmother Carson's Fruitcake For years my in-laws and my wife's other people have discussed in my presence their fond remembrances of a fruit cake made by Jennifer's mother's mother. I knew Grandmother Carson (or, as she is known in the family, GMC ). She was a strong, quiet woman, and an excellent cook. In the early years after Jennifer and I got married, we used to go down to Dothan , Alabama to visit GMC and have Thanksgiving there. Anyway, I never had GMC's fruitcake and all this talk about this fruitcake within my married extended family was as if they had all just eaten a piece last weekend. I accused both Jennifer and her mother recently of making the whole thing up. The damn cake never existed. So, Jennifer had her mother over here last weekend to make this mythical fruitcake. Now I know why they talked about this cake for two decades without having eaten it. It takes forever to make. There are so many ingredients but, essentially, there's no cake ab