When: July 31
Cotton Candy Day on July 31st celebrates one of carnival food's most iconic confections — spun sugar that turns into impossibly light, cloud-like strands that melt on the tongue. Despite its theatrical appearance, cotton candy is essentially pure sugar — about the same amount of sugar as a small candy bar but spread over a volume that seems enormous. It's one of food science's most elegant illusions.
Cotton candy was co-invented by a dentist — William Morrison invented the electric candy floss machine in 1897, providing a uniquely profitable professional arrangement.
In 1897, a Nashville dentist named William Morrison partnered with a confectioner named John C. Wharton to build a machine that heated sugar and used centrifugal force to spin the molten liquid through tiny holes, producing fine threads that solidified into a cloud-like mass. They called it "Fairy Floss." The inventor's profession, in retrospect, could not have been more appropriate. Morrison and Wharton introduced Fairy Floss at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. They sold 68,655 boxes at 25 cents each — roughly half a day's wages for an average industrial worker. The product moved immediately. By the 1920s, "cotton candy" had replaced "Fairy Floss" in American usage (Britain kept "candyfloss"). The same basic machine design — rotating heated bowl, centrifugal extrusion through small holes — is still in use today. The physics are straightforward. Granulated sugar melts at around 320°F. The spinning bowl forces the liquid through its tiny holes, extruding streams too fine to retain...