http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_candy wrote:
<<Cotton candy (US, India, Canada), candy floss or candyfloss (UK, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa), or fairy floss (Australia) is a form of spun sugar. Food coloring can be used to change the natural white color. There are many flavors, including strawberry, lemonade, blueberry, lime, grape, orange, watermelon, pineapple mango, and more.
Cotton candy was first recorded in the 16th century. Machine-spun cotton candy was invented in 1897
by the dentist William Morrison and confectioner John C. Wharton and first introduced to a wide audience at the 1904 World's Fair as "Fairy Floss" with great success, selling 68,655 boxes at the then-high price of 25¢, half the cost of admission to the fair (equivalent to $6 today).
Joseph Lascaux, a dentist from New Orleans, Louisiana, invented a similar cotton candy machine in 1921. In fact, Lascaux patent named the sweet confection “cotton candy” and the fairy floss name faded away, although it retains this name in Australia.
Typical machines used to make cotton candy include a spinning head enclosing a small "sugar reserve" bowl into which a charge of granulated, colored sugar (or separate sugar and food coloring) is poured. Heaters near the rim of the head melt the sugar, which is squeezed out through tiny holes by centrifugal force. The molten sugar solidifies in the air and is caught in a larger bowl which totally surrounds the spinning head. Left to operate for a period, the cotton-like product builds up on the inside walls of the larger bowl, at which point the machine operator twirls a stick, cone, or their hands around the rim of the large catching bowl, gathering the sugar strands into portions which are served on stick or cone, or in plastic bags. The product is sensitive to humidity, and in humid summer locales, the process can be messy and sticky.>>
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