The History Of Cotton Candy

As far back as the 13th century Venice was importing sugar from India.

By the time the 15th century came around, Italian aristocrats were decorating their dinner tables with sugar sculptures.

Spun sugar [as in cotton candy] was made by the simple expedient of dipping a fork in and out of melted sugar and then allowing the sugary threads to solidify in the air. The strands being draped over an upturned bowl while they dried.

Other European countries quickly adopted this craze for making spun sugar in their homes and most often this colored spun sugar was used as a decoration.

They spun gold or silver colored sugar into very intricate decorative webs for Easter.

This spun sugar was of necessity only enjoyed by the wealthy. It was always made by hand all those hundreds of years ago and took quite a lot of time to do. Plus the poorer class of people not only couldn’t afford the sugar they just didn’t have the time to stand around spinning sugar into strands.

Americans were not to be able to enjoy this sugar treat until much later. By the year 1897 two American men William Morrison and John Wharton produced the first machine to make this sugar confection.

The method by today’s standards would seem quite pathetic, but it was the first machine to produce the sugar treat mechanically instead of by hand.

Spun sugar candy was introduced in 1900 at the Paris Exposition. Then the Americans were given their first sight of this fairy floss, as it was then named, at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.

People seemed more than willing to pay 25c for a box of this sweet treat, the same amount of money charged for entrance to the World’s Fair. It earned the candy makers a handsome $17,000 from the sale of more than 68,500 boxes.

The name of Fairy Floss was not changed to Cotton Candy until the 1920’s and the name is still used today.

Over the years newer machine designs and much improved models have been produced. By the 1970’s confection makers brought out a new and very much improved machine that was capable of commercial production.

At one time you only got cotton candy in either pink or blue but now you have a rainbow of colors available and the number of different flavors is unbelievable.

You don’t need to wait until there is a fair or such anymore you can produce this confection in your own home with the assistance of very moderately priced machines.