Killing Lincoln

[Laurie Verge]

A personal favorite that dates to pre-Civil War Richmond and then was transplanted to Washington, D.C. after the war is something called Velatis Caramels. The Velati family were Italian immigrants who started a candy business in Richmond. It was lost when that city was burned at the end of the Civil War. They moved their business to D.C. and started over.

When I was a child, they had the typical old-time candy store on 8th or 9th Street. They carried a wide assortment of every kind of candy that you can imagine, but the highlight of their products was their assortment of homemade caramels - both sugary (my favorite) and chewy, vanilla, chocolate, true caramel, some layered with marshmallow cream, some with nuts. Out of this world delicious!

They went out of business in the 1960s, but their caramel recipes were bought by one of the top-notch department stores in D.C. - Woodward & Lothrop. They went out of business about twenty years ago. We found out that Velati descendants were manufacturing the caramels in Florida, and several of us would mail order them. They have now opened another shop just outside D.C. There used to be a website for them, so type in Velatis Caramels and check them out.

Warning to Maddie - they are very sweet, which is a major requirement for any American with Southern genes. BTW: Way back in the 1930s, my mother used to date an Englishman who was the heir to a British candy company named Lowrys. Is it still around?