五顏六色的棉花糖，入口即化的甘甜滋味，這是很多成年人都無法抵擋的誘惑。好像不只是在吃糖，也是在品嘗回憶。是誰這么偉大，發明了這樣的好東西呢？

The original monicker（外號） for spun sugar（棉花糖） was "fairy floss," the Brits call it "candy floss," and we started calling it "cotton candy" in the 1920s.

According to Gourmet magazine (February 2000), the real story takes place in 1897, when William Morrison and John C. Wharton, Tennessee candymakers from Nashville, invented the world's first electric machine that allowed crystallized sugar to be poured onto a heated spinning plate, then pushed by centrifugal force through a series of tiny holes.

They proudly took their "Fairy Floss" to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (otherwise known as the St. Louis World's Fair) and sold the product in chipped-wood boxes. Though they sold each box for a whopping 25 cents (half of the fair admission price), they sold 68,655 boxes. (That same fair also introduced the world's first ice-cream cone.)

Early spun-sugar machines were extremely unreliable. They rattled and broke down constantly. The introduction of spring bases in 1949 proved to be a breakthrough. The company that introduced that innovation, Gold Medal Products of Cincinnati, Ohio, manufactures almost 100 percent of all cotton-candy machines in the country today.

Cotton candy has been enjoying a resurgence of sorts. Though it does only have about 100 calories and less sugar than a can of regular soda, it's a pure sugar cash machine. Some cotton candy vendors claim (in an Internet ad) that "in as little as 2 square feet of floor or counter space, you can place this easy-to use cash generator that will continually bring in AT LEAST 90 cents profit on every dollar sold!" Wonder if any dentists have stock in Gold Medal Products.

（來源：straightdope.com 英語點津 Helen 編輯）

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