A Tecumseh family holds on to their great great grandmother's 141-year-old fruitcake, which has a storied history, including being eaten on national television.

'It's a great thing,' Julie Ruttinger told the Associated Press about her family's tradition of putting her great great grandmother's fruitcake on the dining room table every Christmas. 'It was tradition. It's a legacy.'

Back in 1878, Fidelia Ford would make a fruitcake every holiday season. The cakes would age for a year before being eaten, and one year Fidelia didn't make it to the Christmas unveiling of the fruitcake.

The family brought out the cake and put it on the dining room table in her honor, and has every year since.

Notice how I said put out the cake, but they did not EAT the cake.

Which leads me to believe they didn't like fruitcake (who does!?) and they had an excuse to not eat it since gramma was no longer glaring at them to do so. (Just a theory).

At any rate, the cake was once featured on NBC's 'The Tongiht Show', where Jay Leno had the late Morgan Ford, the then purveyor of the cake, eat a bite on national TV. Leno and Ford agreed the cake tasted 'Like threshed wheat.'

It remains the only the blemish on the fruitcake, which can be seen here.

 

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