A Short History of Laffy Taffy - By: Tauqeer Hassan

Laffy Taffy is one of America’s most popular brands available in variety of fruit flavors and loved by children. It is a modern form of toffee and is chewable. Depending on the needs of the market, Laffy Taffy is packaged in a variety of formats. Individually packed smaller pieces are packed in a jar or larger candy bars of 1.5oz.

Taffy or toffee which is known outside the US is a mixture of butter and sugar boiled until it reaches sticky consistency that can be stretched and pulled to form a shape. The stretching is most important because it prevents the taffy getting hard into a rock like candy. On one knows if toffee was invented in France, England and Scotland although the first written record of taffy is known to be found in the 1817 issue of the Oxford English Dictionary. However there is no mention of its origins.

According to some historians, the toffee of at least its recipe without the stretching ability might have been around since the Roman times. Butter and sugar were common cooking ingredients for medieval and Roman cooks. The very basic hard toffee was a favorite of Scotland since the time of Robbie Burns. Toffee is known as a tablet in Scotland and it is not very easy to be broken with teeth, this is the reason it is mostly sold with a small metal hammer used for breaking the tablet into small pieces.

The softer chewier candy known as taffy was very famous from the mid to the late 1800s. It was an ordinary candy made in local candy stores and would stay well on candy store shelves when wrapped in wax papers. In the early 1800s, there were social events that involved making taffy that spread around the US, it was initially known as candy pulling later known as taffy pulling. It was a popular past time mostly liked by young people courting each other because it allowed close contact without stigma.

A young lady was believed to have blushed as she accidently brushed the hand of young man while pulling taffy. The popularity of taffy pulling parties decreased in the US and was preserved in some small families or towns enjoying the tradition. However taffy pulling parties are still an important annual event in parts of Wales.

Salt water taffy, a derivative of taffy which is only sold in North America was originally invented accidently. It sounds like a story written by Roald Dahl similar to the modern Laffy Taffy. David Bradley, an Atlantic shopkeeper was mopping up his store after a tidal wave when a small girl came in asking for a bag of taffy. He was not in a very good mood and suggested her to take a piece of his salt water taffy, she took it and enjoyed it so much that Bradley created a recipe for taffy consisting of an added table spoon of salt instead of other flavors. This happened back in 1883 ninety years earlier when Laffy taffy was introduced in the market by Breaker Confections. It was a subsidiary company of Quaker Oats Company that created Willy Wonka range of candies. It was made for complementing the story by Roald Dahl and were packed with bright labeling and psychedelic colors.

Laffy taffy has been a popular candy since its launch. The release of movie called ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ in 2005 starring Johnny Depp boosted the sales of the candy establishing a new generation of Laffy Taffy fans.

About the Author

History is always interesting for me so, I like to write about topics like history of Barbie and also history of Laffy Taffy.

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