Pecan, that is.

I’ve just come back from a road trip to North Carolina involving kin, cars and colleges.  (And let me tell you, that was a stretch to get that alliteration into that sentence.)

My mom has a new car.  She wanted to sell/give her old car to my niece.  There’s just under 1200 miles between them.

Road trip!

We met in the middle to do the car hand-off and so my niece could look at a couple of colleges in North Carolina.  (UNC and Duke, both gorgeous campuses!)

The thing about a road trip–aside from all the usual adventures and the rest stops and service stations, the breakfast buffets and sudden rain storms, the testily recalculating GPSs and the stiff joints–is the opportunity to revisit regional cuisines.  (Or visit them for the first time, I guess, if you didn’t spend your childhood summers driving up and down I-95 like we did.)

So, there’s barbecue and country-fried steak and what have you.  But. . .if you’ve never had Divinity. . .you have missed out.

We stopped at Smith’s Fireworks (no relation–just a long-standing business in South Carolina and a long-standing tradition of stopping there).  And, as always, they had Pecan Divinity on sale.

Mmmm-mmmm.

Divinity consists mostly of sugar, corn syrup and egg whites.  It’s not about nutrition or health in any way.  It’s about melt-in-your-mouth sweetness.

My recommendation, if you buy it, is to buy the smallest package you can find.  If you make it, give most of it away.  Quickly.

There are very few things that taste as good.

Someday, when I’ve managed to buy a new candy thermometer and if the humidity around here ever drops below 50% (not that many recipes actually have weather requirements, you know), I am going to try to make some Divinity myself.

I might have to pick up some pecans, but I usually have the other ingredients on hand.  Now, some people put candied cherries in their Divinity instead of pecans.  You may do this if you like.  Just don’t bring it around my house.

Pecan Divinity.  That’s the ticket.