The History of Cotton Candy: Spun Sugar Has Been Around a While

Our childhood memories are of not being able to wait to get a mouthful of the giant colored fluffy stuff into our mouths only to have it immediately disappear into a swallow of sugar.  Where did all that pink or blue fuzz go?  We were robbed!

It has been called different names over the years and throughout the world.  In Europe they know it as Candee Floss or Candy Floss. It is known, too, in America as spun sugar.  We started calling it cotton candy in the 1920's.     Australia waxes poetic by naming it Fairy Floss.  

Most food historians seem in a hurry to give the U.S. credit for it, but cotton candy actually originated in the central Iranian city of Yazd. It is known as Pashmak by Iranians, and has been made for centuries.

It then became popular in Italy in the 15th century, but without cotton candy machines the popularity was limited.  This brings us to how America stole the thunder and became known as its founder.

Spun sugar, made on forks, was prohibitively expensive, and was reserved for ancient royalty in Medieval times.  The cooks would make them castles and dragons out of the stuff to their great joy.  The little princes and princesses would be enchanted.  

In the 18th and 19th centuries, cotton candy had a huge sweep of popularity in Europe.  Confectioners were pressed to create special spun sugar Easter eggs that were purchased about as soon as they were produced.

It is said to have been "invented" by four men:  Thomas Patton, Josef Delarose, John C. Wharton and William Morrison.  The thing that gave these four men the edge in producing and laying claim to cotton candy, was that in 1899 Morrison and Wharton, two candy makers from Tennessee, patented the first electric cotton candy machine.  This was a rather sophisticated affair which used centrifugal force to melt sugar and spin it through small holes.  

They introduced to the U.S. in 1904 by  Morrison and  Wharton, at the St. Louis World's Fair as "Candy Floss" and immediately sold  68,655 chipped-wood  boxes at a relatively high price--half the cost of entrance to the fair.  That was one exciting fair.  Also introduced at that fair was the ice cream cone, also originally invented in Iraq.  

However, since firsts matter, it is important to note that Tootsie Roll of Canada Ltd. had a bagged product they called "Fluffy Stuff" that they claimed they introduced at the 1893 World's Fair some 11 years earlier.

But in 1949, Gold Medal Products came up with a better mousetrap.  They invented a cotton-candy making machine with a spring base.  This made it more reliable.  This is when the popularity of cotton candy really began to soar.

The automatic cotton candy machine came along in the 1970's to supercharge the making of the stuff.  Now cotton candy could be made on a mass scale.  It could also be automatically packaged to be sold in stores.  Or you can buy a small machine for under $100 which will allow you to make the stuff on a Sunday afternoon in your own home. Who needs to go to the carnival?

Special sugars are now manufactured to create longer strands which give the cotton candy a texture that tastes as fluffy as it appears.    

Nearly all cotton candy has food coloring added to it and it can come in a rainbow variety of hues.  It now also has flavors such as bubble gum and ice cream.  

Whatever color or flavor, cotton candy has been popular for a long time, and most likely will remain a favorite treat in whatever form comes next.