Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food

From taffy pullin’ to molasses makin’, from raising bees to the enduring temptation of properly made fudge, no coverage of what is sometimes lumped together as “sweet stuff ” is complete without a brief glimpse at these treats for the sweet tooth.

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Molasses making. Courtesy of Hunter Library, Western Carolina University.

While most parts of the Appalachian South get at least some snowfall on an annual basis, a sho’ ’nuff gollywhopper of a snow is another matter. When that occurs, one of the many rituals associated with it—along with snowball fights, sledding, building snowmen and the like—is enjoying snow cream. My mother turned into a kid on such occasions, and once depths reached four or five inches, she would say: “Let’s make some snow cream.” She would then send my siblings and me—or perhaps some of our friends, for whom the house always seemed to be operational headquarters, thanks in no small part to how well Momma cooked—outside with a dishpan. Our orders were to fill it up, using bowls or flour scoops, while being careful not to go too deep in the layer of snow covering the earth and get trash in the mix.

Once the pan was suitably full, a quick trip into the house, the addition of key ingredients and a bit of stirring produced the finished product. Here is Mom’s basic recipe, although it can be expanded as needed.

The ingredients were stirred gently and consumed immediately. There were many variations to this basic recipe. The additional of chocolate syrup was popular, as was cocoa mix. For added richness, an egg could be beaten and stirred into the mix. Raisins soaked in water, drained and doused with a bit of rum flavoring offered another possibility. A dusting of cinnamon along with the aforementioned egg gave an eggnog-like taste. Frozen berries could be thawed and mixed in, or overripe bananas could be mashed up and added. Whatever the end product, it was always a special treat.

Most mountain gardens of my youth included a couple of rows of popping corn, with its tight little cobs of strawberry-colored kernels that puffed up with a glorious symphony of noise when coated with a bit of grease and shaken in a popper over an open flame or a wood-burning stove. If you lack the real deal, and that’s likely the case, store-bought popcorn will work just fine.

Popped corn, enough to make at least a dozen balls (pop plenty, because the extra amount can be eaten as is or even used to make an old-time Christmas tree decoration, strings of popcorn)

Pop the corn as you normally would (but without adding any salt or butter). To make the syrup for the popcorn balls, warm the molasses with the butter and salt. Heat, stirring constantly, to boiling. At that point, add a spoonful of vanilla and “just a tetch” of baking soda and blend them in with more stirring before allowing the syrup to cool. Once the syrup mixture cools, pour it over a big mound of popcorn placed on wax paper atop a flat surface.

You are now ready to form the popcorn balls. In my experience, this has always been done with greased Number 8 pokes (for the uninitiated, that’s mountain talk for paper bags) over your hands, but rubber gloves will do (just make sure they haven’t been treated with talcum powder). Once gently rolled, shaped into a sphere roughly the size of a baseball and placed on cookie tins, some of the popcorn balls demand immediate consumption, while others will keep for a day or two as monuments to savory stickiness so sweet as to be irresistible. The whole process is a glorious mess and will eventually require liberal application of soap and warm water, once the whole production process is completed. Incidentally, young kids love making popcorn balls.

TIP: For interesting variety reminiscent of Cracker Jack, add toasted peanuts to the mix as the popcorn balls are being shaped.

Chop half of the pecans finely and the other half coarsely. Set the pecans aside in separate bowls. Mix together butter, corn syrup, maple flavoring and salt. Add powdered sugar a cup or so at a time, blending thoroughly until the mixture begins to resemble dough. Turn mixture out onto a board and knead in the rest of the powdered sugar and the finely chopped nuts. Once mixture is smooth, divide in half. Shape each half into a 2-inch-thick roll. Brush rolls with a little corn syrup and then roll in the coarsely chopped pecans. Wrap rolls in wax paper or foil and chill. Slice into ¼-inch pieces before serving.

This recipe is really sticky, so make sure to line your cookie sheet with foil or parchment paper before placing the saltine crackers in a single layer atop it. It is also important to use a cookie sheet with at least ½ inch of lip on it to keep the brown sugar and butter from running off the edges.

Combine brown sugar and butter in a pot. Bring mixture to a boil and continue for 3 minutes. Quickly pour the brown sugar mixture over the crackers and spread evenly. Bake for 5 minutes in a 400-degree oven. This mixture will be quite bubbly at the end of 5 minutes. Sprinkle chocolate chips over crackers and let sit for a few minutes until the chips begin to melt. Spread melted chocolate chips over crackers and sprinkle on chopped pecans. Allow to cool completely. Break into pieces and store in an airtight container.

It wouldn’t be Christmas at the Pressley house without these rich pralines. They are perfect for the holiday season.

Combine sugar, baking soda, salt and buttermilk in a large saucepan and cook over high heat, stirring constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. Continue boiling and stirring until mixture begins to thicken and becomes slightly creamy (210 degrees on a candy thermometer). Add butter and pecans and continue boiling over medium-high heat until the candy thermometer reaches 234 degrees (soft ball stage).

Remove pan from heat and add vanilla. Allow mixture to cool about 2 minutes. Beat mixture until it begins to lose its gloss and becomes thick and creamy. Quickly, drop by spoonfuls in 2-inch rounds on waxed paper or foil to cool. If mixture becomes too hard, immerse the bottom of the pan in hot water for several minutes and resume dropping candy.

The hardest part of this recipe is knowing when to start dropping the pralines onto the paper. I’ve dropped too soon and ended up scraping it all up to cook a little more. The best advice I can offer, other than trial and error, is to pay close attention to the mixture. Honestly, these pralines are so good that even if I had to scrape the mixture back into the pan and cook a little longer every time I made them, it would be worthwhile. The pralines are creamy melt-in-your-mouth goodness.

Line a 9" × 9" baking pan with wax paper, completely covering the bottom and sides, and have it in readiness. Place the chocolate chips (they must be semisweet, not milk chocolate) and sweetened condensed milk in a large bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Stir, making sure the chips melt completely, and if necessary, microwave a bit more. The chocolate needs to be smooth. Immediately stir in the vanilla and walnut meats and then transfer to the lined pan. Spread evenly and place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours to set. Remove the fudge and cut into small squares once it has set and then store in an air-tight container. The fudge can be returned to the refrigerator or kept at room temperature. It will be softer if the latter approach is taken.

Mix and bring to a boil. Allow to cool and use to sweeten tea and other cold drinks. This recipe is a great way to save sugar, since it all dissolves in the water and none clumps in the bottom of the glass. By changing the ratios (4 parts water to 1 part sugar), it is also an ideal way to prepare hummingbird food.

Bring all ingredients to a boil and simmer until the liquid reaches the desired thickness.

Strictly speaking, it might be more accurate to call this sorghum syrup candy. But throughout the Appalachians, the word molasses, or sometimes just ’lasses, has long been employed to describe the syrup made from careful processing of juice from stalks of sorghum cane. Molasses making was a complex process involving many hands and requiring some special equipment, and the autumnal ritual was typically a community effort that, much like hog killing, combined an aura of celebration with plenty of hard work. It was all worth it in the end, because molasses was, for generations, the main mountain sweetening. Even today, a run of this candy harks back to festive fall days when this was one of many steps self-reliant folks took in preparing for winter. You will need a candy thermometer for this recipe.

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Squeezing the juice from sorghum cane as a step in syrup production. Courtesy of the National Park Service.

Butter two glass pie pans. In a large saucepan, stir together the molasses, sugar, butter and vinegar. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring steadily until it begins to boil. Continue to boil, without further stirring, until the syrup checks in at 265 degrees on your thermometer. At that point, stir in the baking soda and pour the mixture into the glass pans, dividing it evenly. Allow to cool until you can handle it (while still warm). Work with one batch at a time, pulling the candy into ropes, doubling over and pulling again. Continue this process until the candy shines and is golden in color and then stretch into a rope about ½ inch in width. Lay atop a cutting board and cut into 1-inch pieces with a knife or use kitchen scissors for the cutting. Allow to cool and store in plastic containers or wax paper–lined tins.

NOTE: If you have a helper—and grandkids love this kind of kitchen activity—you can work on both batches at the same time.