Saltwater Taffy and the Flood Story
Near Atlantic City, New Jersey
Every candy shop on the Boardwalk sells it. The bins are piled with little wax-paper twists in a dozen flavors, and the pulling machines in the windows are a ritual display of the making. Saltwater taffy is, in the way that so many beloved American things are, the product of a good story attached to something that was probably already in existence.
The classic account involves a Boardwalk shop owner named David Bradley in the early eighteen eighties. One night, an ocean swell flooded the shop and soaked his stock of taffy in seawater. The next morning, when a young girl asked for taffy, Bradley answered, jokingly, that all he had was saltwater taffy.
She bought it. Her mother loved the name. The candy and the name spread together.
Food historians note, reasonably, that the legend cannot be pinned to a single verified event. But the commercial history is solid. A candymaker named Joseph Fralinger began boxing the candy in the late eighteen eighties and selling it as a souvenir to take home from Atlantic City.
His competitor, Enoch James, refined the recipe, made it less sticky, cut it into individual bite-sized pieces, mechanized the pulling process. The two men's candy brands are now owned by the same family, and both still operate on the Boardwalk today. Whether the origin story is precisely true or not, saltwater taffy belongs to Atlantic City the way beignets belong to New Orleans, not just as food but as a container for a place's self-image.
The pull machines are still running.
