Letter: In Brief

Tuesday 17 August 1999 23:02 BST

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Sir: If toffee "was invented by Anthony's granny in the 1880s..." then what was Molly Bushell selling well before 1759 in her Everton Toffy Shop on Everton Brow ("The life and soul of the party", 16 August)? Even she did not claim the recipe but said it had been given to her "by a medical gentleman". The OED records toffy, toffee, toffey, taffy, tuffy and toughy from the early nineteenth century.

FRITZ SPIEGL

Liverpool

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