Pecans, caramel, chocolate. Name a better combination of flavors. I ll wait.
Americans have been dipping pecans in chocolate and/or caramel for as long as we ve had reliable access to sugar and cacao. In 1918, the Johnson’s Candy Company started making a nut-and-caramel mixture that they dipped in chocolate in a way so that it kind of looked like a turtle. They trademarked the word Turtle, and before long, people were making these treats at home and calling them turtles, too.
Johnson s Candy Company later became the DeMet’s Candy Company, which still has the loosely protected trademark. Folks far and wide use the term turtle to describe anything with those three ingredients. (It s worth noting that Lammes Candies, which has been around since 1885, sells chocolate-covered pecan caramels called Longhorns that first debuted in the 1960s during the Darrell K. Royal national championship years.)