------------------------L.A. TIMES FOOD SECTION 2/95------------------------
1 1/2 c Sugar
1/2 c Evaporated milk
1 ts Butter
1/2 ts Vanilla
1 c Freshly grated coconut
Mix sugar and milk together in heavy saucepan. Cook over medium heat
until mixture reaches 236 degrees on candy thermometer.
Remove mixture from heat. Add butter and vanilla. Beat mixture until
creamy with slight shine, but still thin. Add coconut. Stir well to evenly
distribute coconut. Drop pralines by spoonfuls onto greased foil or marble
slab. Let stand to harden. When hardened, pralines can be stored in tins.
Each praline contains about: 137 calories; 16 mg sodium; 4 mg
cholesterol; 3 grams fat; 27 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 0.28 gram
fiber.
Source: Excerpted from "The Welcome Table: African-American Heritage
Cooking" (Simon & Schuster: 1995) by Dr. Jessica B. Harris.
Presented by: Michelle Huneven, L.A. Times article, "African-American
Heritage: A Higher Cala", 2/16/95, page H12.
"This New Orleans confection is another important link in the chain of
African- American cooking. Throughout the African diaspora in the New
World, women have worked at preparing sugared confections and selling them
door to door in public areas of the city. During the period of enslavement,
the money earned from these sales frequently went to the mistress of the
house, although on some occasions a portion was given to the woman, who
might in this manner some day be able to pay for her freedom. After
Emancipation, the selling of sweets became a time-honored way of making a
small but honorable living. The legacy of the slave saleswoman still lives
on in Brazil's baianas de tabuleiro, in the sweets sellers of the
Caribbean, and in the pralinieres of New Orleans, although there are only a
perilous few of them left.
"The term praline is not an African one, although the similarities of
the New Orleans praline to candies from Curacao, Brazil, Jamaica,
Guadeloupe and other places where Africans have cooked in the New World
would startle many a shop owner in the French Quarter. The name harks back
to France and to the Duc de Praslin, who is said to have had a particular
fondness for the sugar coated almonds that bear his name. A while back, I
was speaking to Leah Chase, the doyenne of African-American Creole cooking
of New Orleans, and was startled to hear her recall that the original
praline was not the brown-sugar pecan confection that is so familiar today,
but rather a pink or white coconut patty that is much closer to taste and
in form to its Caribbean and Brazilian cousins. Here are the white and pink
versions of this achingly sweet treat."
