Pulled Molasses Taffy

Fourth of July. I made the memorial onigiri again — the fourth variety with Fumiko's pickled shiso — and brought them to the neighborhood party. The onigiri are expected now, required, part of the block party's DNA. A neighbor asked for the recipe. I wrote it on a napkin, the way I once wrote the karaage recipe for Eileen, the way food travels between people — informally, on scraps, in handwriting, in the currency of shared meals and borrowed flavors. The recipe on the napkin will become someone else's recipe, adapted and changed and carried forward, and the carrying is how food lives, how traditions survive, how a grandmother in Sacramento feeds a neighborhood in Portland through the intermediary of a granddaughter who puts onigiri on a plate and sets them on a table in July.

Miya waved her flag. The fireworks boomed. Brian held a beer and a sparkler simultaneously, which I found darkly symbolic and also physically impressive. I stood in the yard and thought about last year's Fourth — the grief, the tears, the feeling that Fumiko's absence was a wound in the holiday. This year the absence is still there but it has changed shape — from wound to scar, from raw to healed-but-marked, from acute to chronic. The scar does not hurt the way the wound did. The scar reminds you that the wound happened. The reminding is permanent. The hurting is not. This is progress. This is what healing looks like: not the absence of the mark but the change of the mark from open to closed. I am closed. I am marked. I am healed enough to hold a plate of onigiri and stand in a yard and watch fireworks without crying. This is enough. This is July in Portland. This is my life.

I made kakigori for the kids at the party — shaved ice with homemade strawberry syrup and condensed milk. Miya ate hers in four minutes and asked for seconds and her mouth was red and her fingers were sticky and she was the happiest person in the yard. Three years old and the happiest person in the yard. I want to keep her there. I want to keep her at the shaved ice, at the fireworks, at the age where a red mouth and sticky fingers are the definition of a good day. But the keeping is not mine. The keeping belongs to time. I can only feed her and love her and hope that the feeding and the loving leave marks that heal well, scars she carries with pride.

The kakigori disappeared in minutes — Miya’s red mouth was proof of that — and I found myself thinking about what it means to make something sweet with your own hands and hand it to a child. Pulled molasses taffy is that same impulse in a different form: slow, tactile, requiring patience and warmth and the willingness to get your hands sticky. It’s the kind of recipe you write on a napkin and pass along, the kind that travels between people informally, the way all good things do.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 40 min (plus cooling) | Servings: About 40 pieces

Ingredients

1 cup molasses
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Prepare the pan. Butter a large baking sheet or marble slab generously and set aside. Butter your hands just before pulling — do this step close to when the candy is ready.
Cook the syrup. Combine molasses, sugar, and water in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Stir until sugar dissolves, then clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pot. Stop stirring and cook until the mixture reaches 260°F (hard-ball stage), about 20–25 minutes.
Add butter and soda. Remove from heat. Add butter, baking soda, and salt — the mixture will foam up. Stir gently to combine, then stir in vanilla extract.
Pour and cool. Pour the hot candy onto the prepared baking sheet. Let it cool until it is just comfortable enough to handle — it should be warm but no longer burning, about 10–15 minutes. Do not let it cool completely or it will be too stiff to pull.
Pull the taffy. With well-buttered hands, gather the taffy into a ball. Begin pulling it — stretch it out, fold it back on itself, twist, and pull again. Repeat this rhythmically for 10–15 minutes. The taffy will lighten in color and develop a satin sheen as air is incorporated.
Twist and cut. When the taffy holds a twist and is firm but still pliable, pull it into a long rope about 1/2 inch thick. Use buttered scissors to snip it into 1-inch pieces.
Wrap and store. Wrap each piece individually in a small square of wax paper, twisting the ends closed. Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to two weeks.

Nutrition (per serving, 2 pieces)

Pulled Molasses Taffy — The Sweetness We Make by Hand, for the Ones We Love