Meringue-based white candy with pecans — requires dry weather to set, patience to make, and skill to perfect. The Black Southern Christmas candy tradition.
Divinity is the candy that required skill and patience — and in Black Southern Christmas tradition, the person who made divinity was respected for knowing what most people could not do. It is a winter candy, made when the weather allowed it, given as a Christmas gift, placed on plates alongside pralines and fudge.
Divinity is essentially cooked meringue — sugar, corn syrup, egg whites — with pecans folded in. The sugar content is extreme even by candy standards. Pecans provide some micronutrient value. This is a pure treat food with no therapeutic application.
Divinity requires a hard-ball stage sugar syrup (260°F) poured in a thin stream into stiffly beaten egg whites while beating continuously. This is technically demanding. The humidity sensitivity is real — divinity will not set in humid weather, which makes it a winter candy in the South. Beat until the candy loses gloss and holds a soft mound when dropped from a spoon. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper quickly before it sets in the bowl.
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