It is believed the first use of wild and early cultivated corn was used for popping.
It was a very important part of the ceremonies for the Aztecs as young women danced the popcorn dance, according to Bernardino de Sahagun. In 1519, Cortes saw popcorn for the first time when he invaded Mexico and came in contact with the Aztecs, who used popcorn for ceremonial headdresses, necklaces and ornaments on statues of their gods.
During the Great Depression, bags of popcorn were sold for five or ten cents and were one of the few luxuries that poor families could afford. While other businesses failed, the popcorn business thrived. In fact an Oklahoma banker who went broke when his bank failed, bought a popcorn machine and started a business near a theater. After a couple of years, his popcorn business made enough money to buy back three of the farms he had lost.
During the Depression, movie theaters started to sell popcorn at their concession stands. Those who felt it was too messy and declined to sell popcorn went broke. One theater owner actually lowered the price of admission but sold popcorn and made huge profits.
During World War II, there was very little sugar left in America to make candy, but we ate three times more popcorn than usual.
With the popularity of television in the early 1950’s, people stopped going to the theaters much and sales of popcorn went down.
Percy Spencer, Raytheon Manufacturing Corporation, figured out how to mass-produce magnetrons which were being used to generate microwaves for use in World War II. After the war, Spencer looked for ways his creations could still be used and the microwave oven made its debut in 1946. Popcorn was used often by Spencer to perfect his microwave oven. If you bought a microwave oven today, you will likely find a “microwave popcorn” button.
Charles Cretors, founder of C. Cretors and Company in Chicago, introduced the world’s first mobile popcorn machine at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Scientific American reported, “ This machine…was designed with the idea of moving it about to any location where the operator would be likely to do a good business. The apparatus, which is light and strong, and weighing but 400 to 500 pounds, can be drawn readily by a boy or by a small pony to any picnic ground, fair, political rally, etc, and to many other places where a good business could be done for a day or two.”
Today, we consume about 14 billion quarts of popped popcorn each year, which averages out to about 43 quarts per person.
I took my grandchildren to the movies recently and bought a bag of popcorn. I could have bought a container of popcorn kernels for that price, but at the theater, you just expect to pay a lot for any treat.
We often think that popcorn is a healthy snack, which it can be if you used an air-popper. One cup would be 32 calories. If you used a popper that asks for vegetable oil, that one cup would be 51 calories. A small movie-theater popcorn, however, would be 400 calories. Add butter to that small box, and suddenly you have 630 calories. So you can only imagine how much a large theater popcorn would be! A large movie theater popcorn without butter would be 1,160 calories and with butter, a whooping 1,640 calories … so I hope you are sharing the popcorn with a bunch of folks!
There seems to be some concern about microwave popcorn. The bags contain the chemical diacetyl, which causes lung damage. Some also contain PFAS, which the Environmental Protection Agency calls “forever chemicals.”
So just get a brown paper lunch bag and place 1/4 cup of unpopped kernels. Fold the top over tightly a few times, microwave on high for 2 minutes, or until the popping slows down.
Correction in last week’s recipe:
Thank you George Dochin for pointing out that I left teaspoons out of the recipe for Japanese curry roux. It is 1-1/2 teaspoon ground coriander and 1-1/2 teaspoons ground ginger.