The brittle originated when the ancients from China, the Mideast, Egypt, India, Greece, Rome, and elsewhere coated fruits, nuts, and seeds with honey as a tasty and healthful addition and as a preservative.
So popular was the combination, it’s still around today, commonly referred to as the Greek pasteli – but at True Treats, we simply call it Honey Sesame Brittle.
The peanut brittle, the one in candy stores and even supermarkets, is the pasteli’s much younger American cousin. Many contain corn syrup, while others, like the one Edith ate at her father’s farm in South Carolina, have molasses.
The creamiest brittle, and the first known in U.S. history, also contains pure butter. It appeared in Sarah Rutledge’s The Carolina Housewife in 1847 and is considered the quintessential pre-Civil War Southern cookbook.
Here’s what she advised in her “Excellent Receipt for Groundnut Candy”:
"To one quart of molasses add half a pint of brown sugar and a quarter of a pound of butter; boil it for half an hour over a slow fire; then put in a quart of groundnuts, parched and shelled; boil for a quarter of an hour, and then pour it into a shallow tin pan to harden."
George Washington Carver, a scientist, philanthropist, professor, and peanut proponent, also developed several recipes for peanut brittle.
Although an accomplished man, Carver had a troubling early childhood. He was born into slavery and, at 10 days old, was kidnapped with his mother and sister. Carver was found in a field and traded back to the original slaveholder in exchange for a racehorse. His mother and sister were never heard of again.
One of Carver’s recipes tastes like the sugar-coated peanuts you find in pushcarts in major cities:
Ingredients:
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 1 cup roasted peanuts
- 1 scant cup boiling water
- 1/4 teaspoon soda
Instructions:
Melt all together over a slow fire; cook gently without stirring until a little hardens when dropped in cold water. Add the nuts; turn the mixture into well-buttered pans and cut while hot. Stirring will cause the syrup to sugar.
But how did the peanut brittle find its way to the U.S. in the first place?
Most people believe it originated in the South, which makes sense since the peanut was growing there and not elsewhere. Besides, the first brittle peanut recipe was from the South.
But how did it get to the South? There are two stories:
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The Plausible Story:
The peanut reached the U.S. on slave ships when it was growing in Africa. The enslaved people were the primary ones to grow and eat it. The Irish brought a Celtic version of the brittle to the U.S. in the 1800s when scores of Irish were fleeing the potato famine. In 1847, the two were joined in Sarah Rutledge’s cookbook.
If so, then the peanut brittle has a remarkable metaphorical, if not ironic, history. The peanut brittle, one of the nation’s most popular candies, emerged from the catastrophic events in the lives of two peoples: the African Americans, forced and held in slavery for generations, and the Irish, fleeing from starvation at home.
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The Less Likely Story:
This tale is about the contribution of Tony Beaver, who originated in West Virginia and may explain why the state’s motto is “Wild and Wonderful.”
Tony Beaver was a folk hero, along the lines of Paul Bunyan, whose stories were created by turn-of-the-century West Virginia lumbermen. Poet and author Margaret Prescott Montague, born in 1878 and the daughter of a Harvard graduate, compiled their stories.
Although some suspicious folk think she invented them, the stories, published in her 1928 book Up Eel River, are classic folklore and have been enjoyed by legions of children for decades.
