The candy was also sold mail order in 1926 sheet music was commissioned by James with the title 'Send Home Some Taffy Today!' Both Fralinger's and James's stores still operate on the Atlantic City boardwalk. James also cut the candy into bite-sized pieces, and is credited with mechanizing the 'pulling' process. Fralinger's first major competition came from candy maker Enoch James, who refined the recipe, making it less sticky and easier to unwrap. Joseph Fralinger popularized the candy by boxing it and selling it in Atlantic City. Another cites a storm which caused seawater to wash over the candy, which was consequently (and successfully) marketed with the appropriate name. One relates to an assistant who substituted fresh water with seawater-either through laziness or accident. The original invention of the candy has several different stories circulating, likely all apocryphal. However, in the dialect of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the term taffy without 'salt water' refers to a lollipop. Although it is called 'salt water' taffy, it does not include any seawater it does contain both salt and water in its manufacture. The pulling process, which makes the candy lighter and chewier, consists of stretching out the mixture, folding it over, and stretching it again. Modern commercial taffy is made primarily from corn syrup, glycerin and butter. It is also popular in Atlantic Canada and Salt Lake City, Utah. Salt water taffy is still sold widely on the boardwalks in Atlantic City (including shops in existence since the 19th century), nearby Ocean City, and other beaches throughout the US like Cape Cod. Its late 19th century appellation most likely originated in New Jersey. Salt water taffy is a variety of soft taffy originally produced and marketed in the Atlantic City, New Jersey area of the Jersey Shore starting in the 1880s. Salt water taffy in a candy store in Portland, Oregon This process would add air to the candy, resulting in a soft chewable. Participants would coat their hands with butter and working with a partner pull the hot mixture apart, and then fold it back together and repeat.

The host would prepare the taffy recipe by melting molasses and sorghum or sugar with a mixture of water.

Toffee is a caramelized sugar or molasses candy invented in the United Kingdom, entirely distinct from taffy.Ī taffy pull is a social event around the pulling of taffy that was popular in the 1840s through at least 1870s. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first written record of the word toffee in the forms tuffy, toughy to 1825 and identifies it as a southern British dialectal variant of taffy (first recorded use in 1817), whose modern spelling is first recorded from 1843. The word is also used metaphorically to refer to insincere flattery. The word taffy, referring to the boiled candy, is first known to have appeared in the United States circa 1817.

Taffy apple color