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5. Pour the brittle onto the buttered marble slab and spread to a thickness of ½ inch. Let it cool for a minute or two, then loosen the brittle gently with a pancake turner so that it doesn’t stick to the marble as it cools.

6. Cool the brittle to room temperature, then break into chunks. Store in an airtight container.

PULLED MINTS

MAKES ABOUT 5 DOZEN

I’ll never forget learning to make pulled mints in the kitchen of Mrs. Pegram Bryant one wintry night too many years ago to count. Mrs. B, as I called her, was a well-off, well-connected resident of Statesville, North Carolina. Nearly seventy when I met her, she had a full-time maid and yard man, both of whom lived at the back of her property. She also had a two-room garage apartment, which she allowed me to rent after an intense grilling. “Now who was your mother?” Mrs. B had begun. It was the southern way to trace bloodlines. “You wouldn’t know her,” I replied. “We were on the other side.” I had meant in the Civil War but Mrs. B, an active member of the Colonial Dames, sputtered, “You mean that your people were Red Coats?” (In fact, some of them were.) After a walking-on-eggs start, Mrs. B and I became best of friends. I adored her outspokenness. And I loved hearing her reminisce about her youth, about the cotillions and teas and the “dainties” served there. Like other society matrons, Mrs. B rarely cooked. Her files bulged with old family receipts, however, and she had taught her maid, Dorothy, how to prepare them. Once a year Mrs. B donned an apron and began her December ritual of making pulled mints for family and friends. Soon I was pulling the blistering taffylike strands, too, and relishing every minute. I wanted to taste the mints as soon as they cooled, but Mrs. B said, “No. We have to wait for them to cream up.” That bit of magic took about a week in a tightly covered container. When I left Statesville, Mrs. B pressed the pulled mints recipe into my hand. It was, she told me, an old Allison family recipe. Mrs. B had been born an Allison and she’d been making those mints since her cotillion days. Note: Choose a sunny day for making pulled mints; they won’t cook up or cream up in rainy or humid weather. Dry weather is key.

¾ cup water

4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter

2 teaspoons cider vinegar

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 drop yellow food coloring

3 drops green food coloring

1. Place the water, butter, and vinegar in a large, heavy saucepan and insert a candy ther-mom-eter. Set over low heat and as soon as the butter melts, mix in the sugar. Heat slowly without stirring until the mixture reaches 267° F. This may take as long as 35 or 40 minutes. Meanwhile, generously butter a large baking sheet and set aside.

2. Set the candy off the heat and add the peppermint and vanilla extracts and the yellow and green food coloring. Do not stir.

3. Pour the hot candy onto the buttered baking sheet and cool until you can make a thumb-print in the surface. With lightly buttered hands, gather the candy into a ball and knead in the flavorings, food coloring, and melted butter; it won’t have combined with the candy.

4. When the candy is stiff enough to pull, stretch into thin strands, then reshape into a ball. Continue pulling, twisting, and reshaping until the candy takes on a silvery sheen and becomes too stiff to pull.

5. Quickly stretch and twist into a rope about 1 inch in diameter, then, with buttered kitchen shears, snip crosswise at ½-inch intervals.

6. Wrap each mint in wax paper, place in an airtight canister, and allow to “season” for about a week. Taffy-stiff when they go into the canister, the mints will emerge at week’s end as soft as butter creams.

…three times a day she spread that enormous table with solid food, freshly baked bread, huge platters of vegetables, immoderate roasts of meat, extravagant tarts, strudels, pies—enough for twenty people.

—KATHERINE ANNE PORTER, HOLIDAY

SUGARED AND SPICED PECANS

MAKES 6½ TO 7 CUPS

With pecans being one of the