my Mom always used walnuts.

"Feeling a bit bold today, Amemeba?" said Wordwind.

"Now what exactly, Wordwind, did you mean by that?"
answered AMEMEBA

Hard to be incognito when one is bold, don't you agree, amemeba (a word that purely and only coincidentally rhymes with remember).

rhymes with remember

ah, but alas, it doesn't. meme rhymes with dream... which does make it fit the amoeba rhyme better anyways...

Well, it's at least an off-rhyme or assonance even if you pronounce 'meme' as in the French 'meme':

uh-MEHM-buh

ruh-MEHM-buh (remember pronounced AlabamianAmericanEngligh)

What does divinity candy look like? I have no idea what you are talking about.

My Grandmother made the most marvelous fudge until, in her early 90's, she complained that she was "losing her touch". She meant it literally, the sense of touch in her fingertips was decreasing and she could no longer feel exactly when the candy was ready and the sugar fully incorporated.

divinity is a kind of nouget..-which is a kind of merangue.

for proper nougat, you beat egg whites to peaks, and then add hot syrup (made with honey traditionally) the acid in the honey make the whites beat up even fluffier (just as 'cream of tartar' does--cream of tartar is a mild acidic compound)

nougat varies by the thickness (soft ball, hard ball, crack) of the syrup, the percentage of honey, and skill of candy maker. traditionally, nuts are added too.usually chopped almonds. nougat can be as soft as 'milkyway bar' or hard and chewy (chunks can be found in many tolberone bars)

all candy varies by the sugar used to make it. (the same candy made with cane sugar syrup or honey or a mixture, will come out different--its partly to do with the crystaline structure of the sugar used)
divinity is made with corn syrup, --which is very different than cane sugar--(its higher in fructose, so its sweet spoonful for spoonful)so nougat made with corn syrup is not at all like 'old word nougat' --is so different, its a different candy really. (just like UK english and US english are at times so different, they are almost different languages!)

did i ever mention, i went through a candy making craze for a while? most 'candy makers' just buy chocolate (or worse, fake chocolate!) melt it and shape it..Not me, i went in for making real candy.. Creams, (vanila creams) and nougats, and hard candy (lollypops), caramels and all sorts of candy.(even made liquid center chocolate covered cherries.. (an unsaturated solution, of several sugars. at room temp, and exposed to air, its a 'solid cream', but enclose it, and it re-liquifes-- wrap the cherry in the solid cream, dip in chocolate, and in 24 hours, 'center' is liquid again!)

learned alot about sugars, (cane, raw, brown, corn sypup, treacle, maple, ) more than i care to often admit too.

of troy has beautifully explained how to make it and you can infer what it looks like, but I love trying to describe how things look, so I'm going to take a stab at a description

Divinity looks like:

a small dollop of white to pale beige cloud, but somewhat hard to touch

a small stone, sometimes with nuts inside, visible to the surface, and sometimes not

a little white pingpong ball-sized candy, but not smooth due to the cooking process--a roughened-up pingpong ball, but a little smaller than a pingpong ball

It's harder than a marshmallow (about the same size), but softer than Christmas hard candy; it's not sticky like nougat till you chew it. Instead, it's hard-airy. I don't know what the adjective for hard-airy is, but that's what it is. Maybe tsuwm knows a worthless adjective for hard-airy. And because of its soft-hardness, it has a little bit of crunch, not even as crunchy as popcorn. You crunch right through it as a foot easily crunching through a thin layer of ice over snow, only the divinity isn't cold, of course. In fact, if snow were a room temperature manifestation and sweentened, it would be divinity. [Come to think of it: if air could be hard, it would also be divinity. Perhaps we can say divinity is all that's airy turned solid and all that's snowy turned room temperature. I'm teasing you, bel, so you'll be tempted to make some and then mail me some!]

It is often seen in Southern (USA) roadside stores with the usual Southern favorites for sale: moon pies, fudge, peanuts, peanut brittle, and divinity. No surprises. But divinity sounds high class and better somehow.

but it is not, strictly speaking, a southern confection. my dad (North Dakotan of German roots) made it every year as a Christmas treat. too sweet!

(nothing here for hard-airy)

edit:
http://www.gti.net/mocolib1/kid/foodcandy.html#divinity

has this made divinity candy any clearer in your mind, bel?

it is hard to describe. it can have a crunchy outside, but taffy like and chewy inside.. its a light and air feeling candy.. that taste almost like nothing but pure sweetness with a few chopped nuts thrown in.--which basically is what is is.. the meringue acts as a foaming 'net' that the syrup/candy coats..the syrup 'cooks' the micro fibers of the whipped egg whites, -and they all but disappear, leaving a 'meringue' of sugar candy.

for the record, marshmallows, (original made with a vegetable gel from a marsh growing mallow plant) are meringues, also with hot syrup (soft ball stage)added and geliten to stiffen them.

7 minute (fluffy) frosting are very similar, (only you cook the meringue (sugar and egg whites) while you are beating them, instead of heating the sugar(syrup) and adding to ready made meringues.

http://www.agriculture.com/sfonline/sf/1996/december/recipes/
It's the plate on the left. Note--this is pink because it's peppermint-flavored. I've only ever seen white. Nasty stuff--as tsuwm said, too sweet. But then, I've never liked meringues anyway.

getting back to words, --i was thinking last night about this thread,and different sugars--
how many do we know?--and while we're at it, how about other compounds that have 'key word' endings? (ose is common ending for sugars)

frucose--(fruit sugar)
dextrose (cane sugar)
maltose (malt sugar--or barley sugar)

to start..

and the ide(s) (mineral salts)
floride --most commonly stanis floride (tin/florene salt used to prevent tooth decay)

and um(s) --certain minerals
calcium
aluminum

(Just having fun here, of troy):

comatose (when eating too much sugar--bit of an exaggeration here)
acetose
overdose (overdosing on things sugary can at least cause one to faint)
ketopentose
sucralose
polyose
and, fittingly, otiose

We could *ose on onelook and come up with hundreds of terms, not all necessarily sugar terms.

And the everpopular 'ols
ethen, methen and did you 'ave a good time on yer.

Hey I just found out that alcohol is from the Arabic al-koh'l meaning "something subtle".

koh'l (kohl) came into english too (with out the al!) as kind of eye make up (made from fermented plant matter, it was originally a plant dye applied to skin, -around the eyes, similar to the henna dyes that are still used on hands and feet, (and popular in NY--i had one once!)but it had an almost black color.

Oooooooooo, this is reminding me of the old, old story about the 3 kinds of gin...Huh? Sure, oxy-, hydro-, nitro-.
The reply is quite rude, but most of you have heard it, I'm sure: mustard, custard, and you...you big $#!^
Sorry, I've just returned from a 5 day reunion, and all the old folks came up with all the old jokes.

No idea how the name came to be. I do know tht my son ate it every April Fool's Day when I made it using Ivory soap!

Well, you know... cleanliness is next to godliness.