Maple cotton candy hits the sweet spot

Forget the fried Twinkies, candy bars and whatever else (battered Oreo sundaes? Has it come to this?) they are dropping into hot oil this year. The ever-expanding category of Things That Are Fried That Shouldn’t Be is a cynical marketing grab for attention.

No. Put down that slice of deep-fried pecan pie and step back, turn and walk to the Commercial Building in the southeast corner of the Fairgrounds. Hunt until you find the tiny MacLeod Farms booth. Then hand Martin Broggini $3.50, and he will give you a sack of pure spun Vermont.

Yes, it LOOKS like cotton candy, except for the color, a pale, almost gold shade of tan. That’s right, cotton candy made from pure maple sugar.

“There’s no fat!” Broggini boasts, neatly side-stepping a discussion of carbs and calories. Though it’s probably not bad compared with most of the foodstuffs for sale at the fair, because it’s only four or five tablespoons of maple sugar.

The business was started by Broggini’s father-in-law and has been coming to the fair for 34 years. The Brogginis also will sell you just about anything mapleish, from cookies to candies. They really know syrup, which they make themselves after tapping about 1,000 trees.

They’ll sell it to you by the gallon. But there couldn’t be a better merger of maple and fair than the cotton candy, which is sublime.

Thirty-four years? And no one told me?