Salt Water Taffy memories...
Every time I think of salt water taffy I immediately get sent back to my childhood spent in Ocean City Maryland. Our family would pack up the car, and drive the hours long trip just to be near the beautiful ocean and hot sand. My sister and I looked forward to the vacation and all the treats me would get to eat each year. Salt Water Taffy reminds me of making sandcastles, and long walks on the boardwalk, getting my pictures taken in old fashioned photo booths, and most of all of the little candy stores places every so often down the long Maryland boardwalk. I'd walk to the candy store, with flip flops on my feet to protect me from the hot wood. I'd buy salt water taffy by the bagfuls, trade flavors with my sister and all the little friends I would meet by the shore. I still think of this whenever I eat this treat, and love it the same to this very day. ~ Amber-Lynn from Michigan It seemed that taffy was and continues to be a favorite of mine. As a child, it was Bonomo taffy, BB Bats and Kits. Even my mom learned how to make taffy. But nothing could beat the mystery of salt water taffy. We were from a big city, but my grandmother lived out in the hills in Arkansas. When we would go to visit, my brother and I would collect coke bottles so that we could go to the store and buy penny candy. One small bottle would get us three cents and if we hit the mother load and found a larger bottle, we would get five cents. Then we would take our earnings and hit the old country store in the hills and stock up on candy. I always bought salt water taffy. My brother would buy chocolate. He would run out of candy immediately while I savored each piece of taffy by letting it slowly melt in my mouth. Today, I am still a lover of salt water taffy. When I put a piece in my mouth, I am carried back to my grandmother's house in the hills. ~ Debbi from Arkansas The childhood candy passion I've had the opportunity to indulge in over the years is salt water taffy. I first tasted it at the Santa Cruz (California) beach and boardwalk when I was nine and newly moved with my family from the mid-west. It was war-time (when seemingly the whole country was moving too!) and when adults working six-days-a-week had little time to indulge their children. Still, one Sunday, my mother boarded a bus for Santa Cruz with my brother and me. We were, she said, to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time and, if there was time before we had to catch a return bus, to take a boardwalk ride or two. My brother, 12, and I decided to ask for tickets for the Tilt-a-Whirl and the merry-go-round, where it was possible to lean out toward a dispenser and try to grab a brass ring. Having come just a few months before from a small town with not much happening, we were goggle-eyed and ecstatic! The outing ended too soon, but not before a final treat: a bag of salt water taffy. Many years later, my daughter attended camp in Santa Cruz, and in those summers she never failed to mail her mom a box of the same concessionaire's salt water taffy. Today, when I'm in any seaside location, I indulge my taste for (and lovely memories of) salt water taffy. It's great that you make it available without the necessity of a seaside visit! ~ Norm from California |
