Salt Water Taffy

Most of us have tasted salt water taffy, and...we dare say, have liked it. Since Joseph Fralinger first created this sweet convection in the 1880's, while living in Atlantic City, N.J., it has grown in popularity throughout the United States. Somehow, Savannah developed a particular fondness for this sugary delight, as evidenced by the, at least, half-dozen candy stores within three blocks of our apartment, which focus on the manufacture of salt water taffy. Being the true adventurers that we claim to be, we visited each and everyone of them to sample their particular examples of this sweet treat. From our experience, immediately eating the finished product, rather than after weeks of it sitting on a shelf, was much better, as the taffy was softer and more gooey. The flavors popped in your mouth.

The process starts with ten pounds of taffy that had been stored in a bucket.

Then it is flattened out and any extra flavoring (such as the coconut pictured here) is added.

Since a lot of taffy appear to be be dual colored, a second taffy layer (here the lighter colored taffy) is added.

The next step is to form it into a giant roll.

The whole batch is placed on the mechanical roller which thins out the roll.

As it gets thinner, the roll is stretched.

When it reaches the desired thickness (approximately the circumference of a silver dollar) it is the fed into a machine that cuts the taffy into the proper length and automatically wraps them. The original ten pounds of taffy makes approximately 800 individual pieces.