In the some ways, wonderful, old days, entertainment consisted of getting together with kinfolk and neighbors, and making something, a quilt, a barn or for the "little ones" taffy.
You put this into your mouth and roll it around and round, and it gradually dissolves.
To make taffy, mix your ingredients and then cook, stirring frequently, to the hard ball stage. That means, everyonce in a while, hold up your spoon and watch how the syrup drips from it. At first it just drops off like any liquid, but then later it begins to drop more slowly. Soon a little thread between the drops will appear. This is the time to test for hard ball stage.
Into a cup of cold water drop about a fourth of a teaspoon of the syrup. Work it with your fingers into a ball. If the ball is soft the taffy isn't cooked enough. Don't wait too long to test again, because the taffy has been cooking while you were testing the first time.
When the ball can be pushed into a hard ball, it is ready to be taken out and poured into a very generously buttered pan or platter.
Don't cool your taffy to quickly by exposing it to cold or it will set to brittle on the outside while remaining soft and hot inside. Once it is hard you can't do much with it.
turn the taffy a few times to expose the inside to cool and out side to soften. Too much handling will cause it to get sugar granules. Just lift the edges and fold them in like you would bread dough.
As soon as the taffy can be handled, work quickly. Wash and butter your hands, take the taffy from the outside and divide it into several balls. Each pair of people take it between them and pull it out into a long strand and fold it back into a single ball again. Pull out and fold back over and over. As you pull the taffy it gets lighter in color from the air getting folded into it.
When do you stop? When it is too hard to make the taffy stick back together again after pulling it, or if it is cracking as you start to pull it out. Or when it is just to hard to pull.
Have a table sprinkled with powdered sugar. Lay the taffy down and shape into smaller pieces. You can roll it into a long strand and cut with scissors.
For Salt Water Taffy add 1 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons corn starch, and a few grains of salt. Add 1/2 cup water and 2/3 cup honey. Cook to hard ball stage and pour into a buttered pan. Cool and pull.
My mother would add some cocoa cook it to the soft boil stage, and take it out doors and drizzle it on the snow. It would be carmel like when it hit the snow and nothing seemed to taste better.
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