Peanut Brittle
Brittle, is a type of confection, consisting of flat broken pieces of hard sugar candy embedded with nuts such as pecans, almonds, or peanuts.
One legend has it that around 1890, a woman living in the South was making a batch of taffy in her home kitchen and a simple ingredient mix-up led her to invent peanut brittle by accident. Instead of adding cream of tartar to her taffy, as the recipe instructed, she absentmindedly threw in some baking soda. Realizing her mistake but disappointed by the waste of ingredients, she gave her failed taffy concoction a quick taste and was delighted by it! She added peanuts so that her creation would have a consistency and crunch distinct from taffy, and we’ve been making peanut brittle (on purpose) like this ever since.
Others maintain that peanut brittle was brought to America from across the pond. Some say peanut brittle began as a Celtic dessert. It’s documented that many found it delicious to combine sugar and peanuts. As time went on, they started pouring syrup on their peanuts to make them seriously sweeter. When Irish immigrants came to America, they brought their culture and cuisine along with them—preparing their peanut brittle reminded them of home. The story goes that peanut brittle caught on particularly well in their new country because peanuts were so easy to grow in the South.
Peanut brittle is a sweet and salty snack that has been around for years, and both the old and the young enjoy it.
joyturtles 