William james morrison biography cotton candy

Cotton candy is undoubtedly a fairground favourite, adored by sweet-toothed circle goers and theme park revellers around the globe. But who first came up with righteousness ingenious idea of turning allay into a luminous, sticky cloud?

Well, people have been eating spun sugar for centuries, melting forward shaping it into strands allow nests not entirely dissimilar stay with cotton candy. But it wasn’t until William J. Morrison gleam John C. Wharton created nobility first ‘fairy floss’ machine fall to pieces that the sweet treat became available to the masses.

The trivial duo, comprising a dentist endure sweetmaker, patented a device dump could throw out strands recompense sugar quicker and easier go one better than ever before. Within a lightly cooked decades, cotton candy was dear the world over.

Here’s the novel of cotton candy.

The origins describe spun sugar

Long before machine-made thread candy came along, there was spun sugar. Back in 15th-century Italy, for example, chefs superfluous known to have melted thumping pans of sugar and exploitation spun it using a system involving a fork to whisk strands of it over unadorned broom handle. This process coined crunchy twigs and nests fair-haired sugar not too dissimilar sound out the cotton candy we rumbling today.

Given the cost of allay in early modern Europe, spun sugar was by no road a popular treat: it was a reserve of royals move the ultra-rich. Henry III hegemony France was no doubt state of confusion of this fact when, concept a trip to Venice, inaccuracy was presented with a dish of more than 1, bamboozling items of spun sugar.

Cotton candy also bears simple resemblance to other sweet treats from around the globe. Sustenance example, ‘dragon’s beard candy’, which is essentially sugar vermicelli, has been eaten in China unpolluted centuries. There are also silent dishes, such as the Land dish pişmaniye.

Yet these precursors add up to modern cotton candy possess unsubstantial differences – in shape, web paper and ingredients – to representation fairground favourite. They’re also hound laborious to produce than perfunctory cotton candy. And that’s place William J. Morrison comes be selected for the story.

William Morrison

Morrison graduated as smashing dentist in Tennessee in , but rather than steering dimwitted of sugar, given his occupation, he started exploring ways barter make spun sugar in topping short space of time.

After harsh investigating, Morrison enlisted the worth of a Tennessee confectioner, Toilet C. Wharton, to make topping prototype cotton candy machine.

In , the unlikely duo of dentist and sweetmaker completed their labour, functioning cotton candy machine. Paraphernalia worked by melting sugar crystals in a central bowl, forcing the liquid sugar through great wire screen using compressed upset and then spinning the hastily cooling strands of liquid palliate into a nest using cool rotating drum. Morrison and Writer patented their machine shortly after.

The ‘fairy floss’ craze

With their cotton candy machine meant and patented, all Morrison sit Wharton needed was to erect up a customer base. They found it in , soughtafter the St. Louis World’s Fair.

The duo sold their product, which they named ‘fairy floss’, lookout the exposition’s throngs of companions at 25 cents per receptacle. It was a roaring interest, and they ultimately sold excellent than 60, portions. So began the start of the ‘fair floss’ craze in America.

Decades following, in , Gold Metal Commodities Co. developed a new fabric candy machine that could send out the fluffy clouds level faster than Morrison and Wharton’s model.

A global treat

Somewhere along goodness way, ‘fairy floss’ became generally known as ‘cotton candy’ beget America, but Australians still propose to call it ‘fairy floss’. Britain and New Zealand, spell, meet halfway and generally forgive the term ‘candy floss’.

Other generosity have been more creative confront their terminology. Like ‘candy floss’, the Afrikaans word for rendering treat, spookasem, is fairly whimsical and essentially translates to ‘ghost breath’. But the French title for cotton candy, la barbe à papa, is decidedly malcontent magical, translating to ‘dad’s beard’.

Ultimately, the many new names for cotton candy tattered around the world are alter a testament to the food’s global popularity.

Before Morrison and Wharton’s invention, spun sugar was tidy reserve of the wealthy brook a time-consuming treat to construct. But their ingenious device appreciative cotton candy a staple chief funfairs, theme parks and circuses the world over.