One hundred years of Fairy Floss (for my little sister)

Candy floss or cotton candy is a form of spun sugar that is produced in a candyfloss machine and sold at fairs. Many people consider eating it, along with toffee apples, part of the quintessential experience of what a visit to a fairground is all about. Having said that- eating it is only part of the attraction. Watching it being made fascinates children and adults alike. It’s sweet, sticky, feels like wool to the touch but melts in the mouth. It doesn’t have much of an aroma although the candyfloss machine itself has a cooked sugar smell when in operation. Just such a machine was invented by William Morrison and John C. Wharton, In 1897. These two were candy makers from Nashville, they invented an electric machine that allowed sugar to be poured onto a heated plate, which melted it. The plate spun very quickly and so pushed the molten sugar through a series of tiny holes by centrifugal force. They first used the machine in public at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair they called the product "fairy floss," and sold portions of it in cardboard boxes for 25 cents a serving. This was very expensive that the time, the price was half the admission cost of the fair itself! Never the less they sold 68,655 boxes. The term “cotton candy” wasn’t used until the 1920s.