Food can bring people together when eating a meal or baking a favorite recipe. The truth is, everyone loves food and everyone belongs in the kitchen. Some people have favorite foods that come from memories, from family, or from heritage.Think about your favorite food. Does it have special memories of a good moment in your life? Does it include a few of your favorite friends or family members? Does the recipe itself mean something to you? For many of us, that is what our favorite food means to us. Mine does.One my favorite foods, a family recipe, is called divinity.
Divinity is a favorite snack-dessert in my family which we usually bake for the holidays. It is essentially just sugar with more sugar.The final product is, crazy enough, a ball of sugar. This isn’t a very common recipe because it can be fairly tricky to make.It takes practice and precision, coupled with a few failed tries, but it is worth it in the end. I also find that any divinity recipe isn’t common among other families. As you might guess, this isn’t the healthiest snack either, but, as the name says, it is absolutely divine.
The original recipe was made by my great grandmother, Hazel Starr, who was a loving and caring member of the family, and, of course, a talented cook. My favorite memories of her are being at family gatherings at her house, during which we had large card games and she would teach me how to play. My dad grew up with her cooking at every family gathering. Of all of her recipes, divinity was one of his childhood favorites, even among her remarkable recipes and superb cooking. When she passed away several years ago, he chose to revive the recipe. However, as mentioned earlier, it’s not the easiest to make. It took more than a few failed tries to get it right, but eventually he was able to do it.
As of now, he makes divinity and shares with all of the family at Christmas time every year, when we all go to my aunt’s an uncle’s. It has become one of the cherished memories we look back on and look forward to every year. We even still play some of the same card games that Grandma Hazel taught many of us how to play. Looking back year by year, I can see how the family has grown, but the connection to family is the same every year. It makes you wonder where the time has gone, and then you can see everything that you’ve done in the past year, and each year before. ‘How the time flies…’ you might wonder. To think, all of that reminiscing was brought on by a small snack and a little holiday spirit. Everyone in the family is grateful for my dad’s time he spends on making divinity every year. The taste can be remembered as fondly as the smell of cinnamon from the kitchen, the moments when everyone is sitting and eating, and the glowing crystals from the tree.
It’s amazing how something so small can represent ideas like family ties, heritage, and special memories. Meals are a time to socialize, cooking is a way to show that you care, and food creates a reason for us to come together. Some of your favorite foods might have similar ties, such as your mom’s cookie recipe that she would make for you when you’re feeling down.It could be the cake recipe that you ate at your wedding. Maybe it’s the burger you got during senior year of college after eating ramen and cereal for three weeks straight. I just hope that everyone has a memory like this because having something to cherish can be important when someone passes away, when you spend time away from home, or even when you’re going through a rough patch. Eating is just something so human, and not just biologically. Each recipe has a history, every cook has a reason that they enjoy what they do, and each meal eventually becomes a memory. Food brings us together around a table, if only for a little while, to be with each other, which is one of the most human things of all.
Divinity- Grandma Hazel’s Recipe MODIFIED
Ingredients:
- 3 cup white crystal sugar
- 1/2 cup light corn syrup with real vanilla flavoring
- 1/2 cup water
- 3 medium eggs (or two large)
Instructions:
- Split the sugar, syrup and water mix between 2 – 2qt sauce pans and heat both pans at the same time.
- Bring both pans to a boil and continue cooking up to required temp
- While mix is boiling, whip 2 large or 3 medium egg whites in mixer bowl until they form stiff peaks.
1st Pan
- Boil to medium ball stage – 240-245 degrees (or until it forms a soft ball in cold water)
- Slowly pour hot syrup into the egg whites in a thin stream with mixer running a low speed (#2). Should take 60-90 seconds to pour.
2nd Pan
- Boil to hard ball stage – 265-270 degrees (or until it forms a hard strings and crackles when poured into cold water)
- Slowly pour hot syrup into the egg whites in a thin stream with mixer running a low speed (#2). Should take 60-90 seconds to pour.
- Beat full mix on med-high speed (#7) until it begins to stiffen, stands on its own and changes from gloss to satin finish.
- Stop mixer, add 1 Tablespoon of cold water, slowly increase mixer speed until water is completely mixed into the divinity. About 1 minutes. Stop mixing.
- Remove mixing bowl from mixer, Use two small spoons to drop balls of divinity onto parchment paper (or wax paper).
- Let cool, place in air tight containers. Can be frozen to keep longer.