ISSUE 47, THE BEST OF 2021, Part 7: Old Southern Candies
Old Southern Candies
Over the years I’ve written about classic southern candies—the pecan candies of San Antonio, the groundnut cakes of Charleston, Gullah-Geechee monkey meat, Chad Carter’s experiments with sorghum caramels, but every time I read through an old cook book I encounter things worth remembering—dried apple candy (made in a manner parallel to the fig and ginger candy recipe below), benne brittle, persimmon taffy, checkerberry hard candy, so I thought I’d air out a few recent discoveries worth pondering.
Illustration below: Anson Mills Sorghum caramels with benne, also Chad Carter’s Sorghum caramels with puffed Carolina Gold Rice.
Fig & Ginger Candy
We tend to think of candy canes and ribbon candy as the default old timey Christmas candies. There was another one that has been lost: It used dried figs and candied ginger. Recipes survive from Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina.
1 cup dried figs.
¼ cup candied ginger
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup granulated sugar
¾ cup of thing cream or evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup seedless raisins
Boil figs 3 minutes, drain and cut or chop. Wash off sugar from candied ginger and cut into very small pieces. Combine the sugars with the cream and figs; cook to 234 degrees F (soft ball stage). Remove from fire, add butter and vanilla, cool slightly, then beat until creamy, [add] raisins and giner. Kneed and shape into a loaf. Slice as needed.
Pumpkin Candy
This chocolate coated confection combining pumpkin and coconut became popular along the Gulf Coast during the interwar years. This recipe appear in the New Orleans States on September 18, 1941. Thais Becker is identified as the creator. The category of refrigerator candies would swell in the mid-20th century.
½ cup pumpkin mashed
3 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 cup seedless raisins
1 cut grated coconut
Few grains salt
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
Have the pumpkin well mashed add the sifted sugar to pumpkin a little at a time and stir until thoroughly blended. Add remaining ingredients and work together, using a fork until well mixed. Place in a ¼ inch cake pan lined with waxed paper. Flour hands lightly and pat out to shape of pan. Place in refrigerator until firm. Melt four squares of sweet chocolate over hot water and coat candy, using a brush. Mark in squares before chocolate is hard.
Sassafras Candy
Sold in stick form, reddish in color, Sassafras candy was a hallmark of the American general store before the rice of the grocery chains. In the 20th century this hard candy became scarce. While Claeys candies offers a version made from sassafras oil (lozenges not sticks), the old home style candies made from a decoction of boiled sassafras root became the preserve of a few candy artisans. Sassafras candy was the specialty of Greenup Kentucky where the Cartee family manufactured a hardy candy from a decoction of sassafras roots and shipped it to drugstores throughout the South. For years it was sold as the signature treat of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. The Cartee recipe was proprietary, though some averred that they could taste cinnamon as well as sassafras in the irregularly shaped chunks. When Mrs Cartee was invited to the Mall in Washington D.C. as part of the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in 1969 a reporter from the Evening Star noted the candy was “made of sugar, syrup, sassafras tea, and fruit coloring” (July 4, 1968), p. 29. It disappeared in the 1980s after Mrs Cartee had a heart attack. In the 1950s the Sassafras Products Company of Cotter Arkansas sold a sassafras hard candy on a regional basis. The one home candymaker I’ve ever witnessed make sassafras candy boiled peeled roots in water, about 2 cups worth, eventually added 2 cups of sugar and a cup and a dash of Karo syrup, and some powdered sassafras root to boiling root liquid. The roots were removed before the sweetning was added. He said don’t boil the roots too violently—a long low boil is best. He sometimes peels the roots, chops, the root bark and adds those particules in with the sugar. But that is optional if you want intense flavor. Claeys makes sassafras candy in 2021 using sassafrene oil.
Sweet Potato Candy
This confection hails from Virginia’s eastern shore, a prime locus for growing quality sweets. In the mid-20th century housekeepers from that region published a cookbook entirely devoted to sweet potato recipes. This included.
2 cups light brown sugar
¾ cup evaporated milk
1 tablespoon butter
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooked sweet potatoes
½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts
Put sugar, milk, butter, and salt in a large pot. Cook over medium heat to soft-ball stage. Remove from heat and allow to cool until hand can be held comfortable on the bottom of the pot. Add sweet potatoes and beat until the mixture has lost its gloss. Add nuts, mix well, and pour in butter pan. Cut into squares, then cool.