8 minute read
Praline Queens
By Susan Langenhennig Granger
Here’s a funny thing about pralines: New Orleans’ favorite candy doesn’t really like New Orleans’ typical weather. A swampy day can spell problems for praline makers.
When there’s high humidity, a praline’s texture can turn out more granulated. It won’t set well, ending up with a grainy, fudge-like candy rather than the traditional creamy, smooth classic New Orleans praline.
Throughout New Orleans’ history, praline makers probably doubled as amateur meteorologists, feeling it in their bones when the weather wasn’t right. They knew what worked and what didn’t. But here’s the science behind it: “Cooking candy syrup to the desired temperature means achieving a certain ratio of sugar to moisture in the candy. On a humid day, once the candy has cooled to the point where it is no longer evaporating moisture into the air, it can actually start reabsorbing moisture from the air,” according to The Science of Cooking. “This can make the resulting candy softer than it is supposed to be.”
VENDEUSE DE PRALINES Praline entrepreneurs — the vast majority of them women — have a long, inspiring history in New Orleans. But like most things in this complex city, there’s a bitter edge to this sweet treat, as its history traces back to the time of slavery and post-slavery economic survival.
But let’s back up first to the very beginning. Pralines reportedly hail from 17th-century France, where a sugarcoated almond treat was created by a chef working for César, duc de Choiseul, comte du Plessis-Praslin, who supposedly ate the candy to help with digestive issues. These pralines became widely popular in Europe and crossed the pond when French settlers brought them to Louisiana.
Once here, though, the settlers realized a problem: almonds were hard to come by. But pecans, well, they were plentiful. It was African-American women who are credited with the “creolization of the praline” by swapping out the almonds for pecans and adding sugar and milk, wrote Chanda M. Nunez in her meticulously researched thesis on the history of praline entrepreneurs. “The culinary genius of African American women created the New Orleans praline, as we know it.”
Craig Claiborne, the acclaimed restaurant critic and food journalist who passed away in 2000, differentiated between old-world pralines and new-world ones in two recipes that can be still found on The New York Times’ Cooking website. The recipe for “Creole Pralines” calls for four cups of pecan halves, two cups of granulated sugar and one cup of dark brown sugar, as well as butter, milk and corn syrup, while his “Classic Pralines” recipe is made with whole blanched almonds and one cup of sugar (it doesn’t specify white or brown), as well as corn oil and water.
“Of all the differences between the classic French and the New Orleans French, none amuses me more than the preparation of pralines,” Claiborne wrote in 1987, describing Creole pralines as “homespun.”
While the homespun nature of the Creole praline is highly debatable, it’s a fact that for centuries praline sales have helped New Orleans women climb the economic ladder, some using it to even buy their freedom from slavery. As Nunez writes in her thesis:
Long after slavery ended, pralinemaking continued to be a valuable skill, providing a path to entrepreneurship. Ingredients were relatively inexpensive — pecan trees grew throughout New Orleans — and selling treats on the street allowed praline makers, pralinières, to raise quick money for their families. “After Emancipation, the selling of sweets became a time-honored way of earning a small but honorable living,” wrote Jessica B. Harris in The Welcome Table: African-American Heritage Cooking.
Well into the 21st century, that tradition continues. For some local entrepreneurs, pralines are a full-time business. For many others, they’re a sweet side hustle. Several years ago, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans, known as SoFab, held an exhibit exploring the business of praline-making. “We had
advertising materials from a number of the praline houses that have been continually owned by descendants of their founders. They have been owned for generations by the same families,” said Liz Williams, founder of SoFab. “Some may have started as street vendors, and the next generations were able to open a shop.”
“The vendeuses from the 19th century may have sold other candy, too,” Williams said. “There were peanut candies and coconut candies. But pralines continued, and I think that’s because of the pecan. The peanut is ubiquitous, and peanut candy was not that unique. And pecans could be harvested for free, which is why pralines could be affordable to make.”
TRADITIONAL TREAT, A MODERN BUSINESS Keyala Marshall was a praline lover long before she was a praline maker. She would buy them everywhere she saw them — from her neighborhood praline lady; from the various candy shops around town; from the supermarket. She developed a sophisticated palate. She knew the texture and flavors she liked best.
“My sister Latasha said, ‘Let’s learn to make them,’” Marshall recalled. So, they found a recipe, and that first batch, well... “They came out awful,” she said, laughing, “like little rock balls.”
But the sisters kept at it. And soon they perfected the recipe and were ready to take them out for a test drive. In 2016, they made 50 pralines and sold all of them during the Nine Times Social Aid & Pleasure Club Second Line parade. “We were so excited,” Marshall said. “I was like, ‘I want a praline empire!’”
While refining the recipe in her free time, Marshall was working at the Rouses Market on Baronne Street in downtown New Orleans. She started in 2011 in the salad bar, but quickly moved up to other positions within the store. She also went back to school, first to study culinary arts at Delgado Community College, then transferring to earn a degree in business management.
On her days off, she would make pralines on her mom’s kitchen island and then bring them into Rouses to give to her coworkers. Hardly surprising, they were a hit. One day, her boss asked her to bring some for a business meeting that Rouses CEO Donny Rouse would attend.
With Rouses’ encouragement, Keyala’s Pralines officially took off. The business was especially sweet as Marshall teamed up with her younger sister Latasha, who had cystic fibrosis. “We would walk the second lines selling pralines,” Marshall wrote in a post on the Keyala’s Pralines’ Facebook page. “Eventually, when her health got worse, we set up a candy shop in my momma’s house for the neighborhood, so she didn’t have to walk too far. And people would knock on the door all day and night.”
Latasha Marshall, who was just 11 months younger than Keyala, passed away on May 16, 2018, at 27 years old. Her death devastated Marshall and her tight-knit family. “The business was on hold because I didn’t know how to continue without her,” she wrote. “Eventually, I found the strength, and she lives through me.”
More determined than ever to succeed, Marshall worked hard, selling pralines at local festivals and markets and direct through her website. Soon, she took the big leap to leave her full-time job at Rouses and dedicate everything to growing her business. Expanding her menu, she added candied roasted pecans, praline sweet potato pies, praline brownies and pecan bread pudding with praline sauce.
With the help of her dad, mom and siblings, she now sells her candy at the Rouses where she once worked. Keyala’s Pralines also can be bought through her website, kpralines.com, and at festivals and pop-up shops around the area. “My dad has been at every event with me,” she said, dubbing him “Papa Prahleen” on social media.
And just three days into 2022, Marshall’s name made it big — literally — when a new
billboard for Keyala’s Pralines went up in downtown New Orleans. “This is just the beginning,” she said. “I want to have a praline factory, a praline shop, a praline food truck. I want to see my pralines at all the Rouses Markets in New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama.”
