Thanksgiving and Aunt Cleone's Fruit Salad

Aunt Cleone isn't really my aunt. She's the wife of my mom's cousin, Merritt. But when I was growing up, she and "Uncle Merritt" lived in the same town we did, and so that became the way I always addressed her. When Aunt Cleone joined the family and began attending Thanksgiving dinner at "the farm," one of her contributions was this wonderful fruit salad made with a cooked custard base to which whipped cream was added along with fruit and marshmallows. The primary purpose of the marshmallows was to soak up any excess fruit juice to keep the salad from becoming "soupy." I don't ever remember a Thanksgiving (or Christmas) dinner without someone making this salad, even after Aunt Cleone and Uncle Merritt moved to Texas.

 When Bob and I got married, this became one of my regular contributions to the holiday meal. Fast forward 27 years. We're living in Switzerland and we're invited to join some other Americans for Thanksgiving and of course, one of my contributions will be "Aunt Cleone's fruit salad."

 Only problem is that I have never seen marshmallows in the stores here. Very early on, I started spending quite a bit of time in the store each week so that I could learn what types of things they carry and what is not for sale here. I heard that an expensive import store in Zürich carries them, but there was none in stock the day I visited. I wondered how the salad would turn out without them. Bob suggested the candy aisle might have something I could substitute and he was right! Two days before Thanksgiving (well, okay, on Thanksgiving, but here we were celebrating on Saturday as no one has Thursday off!) I found some marshmallow candy! Large, pink, green, yellow and white marshmallows, but they were marshmallows! I cut them up and so another Thanksgiving has come and gone with Aunt Cleone's fruit salad. 

  Another small blessing to add to our list that is so long.

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