The History of Louisiana Creole Pecan Candy.

Big Mama, Madea, and MawMaw. These and other titles are used to identify and honor the African American matriarch. Where patriarchs traditionally provide structure and the means to survival, matriarchs provide culture and the very essence of life itself. Matriarchs create and protect the identity of a people, with food being the most enduring tool used to accomplish that.

More than just a snack, Louisiana Creole Pecan Candy offers an edible transmission of culture. By taking a bite, one is symbolically participating in what it means to be Creole. The ancestral ingredients are a time capsule that connects the past to the present. Louisiana Creole Pecan Candy also promises a future for Creole culture by innovating the torch it now carries, via enterprise.

The Louisiana Creole Pecan Candy family tree is imbued with culture-preserving talent from its roots to its shoots. The original family recipe, created by paternal matriarch Hermie Duffy-Jones's family in the 1800s, was passed down from her to her son, Sidney Jones, then to her grandson, Terrence Jones (Founder & CEO), who eventually perfected it. Cathy Burns is the maternal matriarch who raised two daughters, Debra Garland and Barbara Jones. Now retired veterans, Debra and Barbara influence the direction of Louisiana Creole Pecan Candy's growth as both part-owners and the family's modern matriarchs.

African American women, who were indentured servants to the French, created pecan candy. Pralines were originally created in Europe as roasted almonds covered with sugar and/or chocolate. However, after discovering Louisiana's natural abundance of pecans, indentured African American women combined them with milk, butter, and sugar, then formed a patty. This is how Pecan Candy, also known as American pralines, became what it is today.