Fairy floss a favourite

In Lalmonirhat and across the country, no village fair can truly be complete without stalls selling fairy floss, the sweet called hawai mithai locally. Flavoursome, inexpensive and especially popular with children, fairy floss is a much enjoyed taste bud tradition.

“I spent Tk 18 at the village fair yesterday,” says Sourav Chandra Roy, 11, from Sindurmoti village in sadar upazila. “I bought six sticks of fairy floss because I really like it.”

“I also ate two servings yesterday,” confesses Sourav's grandfather Narayan Chandra Roy, 65.

“Fairy floss brings sweet memories of my childhood."

“Children are not my only customers,” says fairy floss hawker Nur Islam, 47, who has a stall at the Sindurmoti fair. “Even old people buy this item. It is made without chemicals. One serving is only Tk 3. The taste is heavenly.” Nur says he sells around six hundred pieces per day at the fair.

One kilogram of sugar in boiled water with air pressure added with his manually-run machine makes around 120 servings of the sweet, explains Nur.

“We never use chemicals for making fairy floss,” agrees another hawker at the fair, Shah Alam, 35. “Village boys like it when it's shaped as a cricket ball.”

“Fairy floss is well-liked in villages,” says another hawker Jamil Islam, 40. “We never go to the towns to sell it because town children are used to fast food and expensive sweetmeats. There are around 25 fairy floss makers in this area and we do our best business at the village fairs during the dry season.” A fairy-floss seller at a fair can earn around Tk 1200 per day, he adds.

According to paediatrician Dr Hafizur Rahman of Lalmonirhat sadar hospital, traditional fairy floss isn't a health hazard for children or anybody else, as it is made without chemicals. “I also ate fairy floss during my childhood,” he says.