What kind of popcorn pops the most

Nearly all of us love popcorn. When we fire up that electric air popper, or even throw that bag in the microwave, it’s in anticipation of a hot, buttery snack food. It is not in anticipation of hot unpopped kernels. So which popcorn pops up best? The only drawback to popcorn is that you don’t always get what you pay for. It is an unfortunate by product of the popcorn popping process. Not every kernel is going to pop.

My personal favorite is ACT II. It provides the best value on both ends. When I am at the store making my weekly (sometimes twice weekly) popcorn purchase, I choose ACT II because it is not the most expensive brand nor is it the cheapest. It does, however, pop up and is the best value. When you are someone who thinks of popcorn as a food group, someone whose bedtime comes right after popcorn time, you take some time to figure out what you are getting for your money.

After eating bag after bag of microwave popcorn, counting the popped kernels that I ate and counting the unpopped ones I threw away, I ended up with ACT II as my brand of choice. I like the fact that I get fewer unpopped kernels. I like knowing I am getting value for my money. But that isn’t the only important part of “best popcorn”. I started with the criteria that all the popcorn was good. I don’t know what makes one popcorn better than the other. I know there are some standards; lightness, fluffiness, crunch of the popcorn and of course flavor. But I know that I really like ACT II.

Take some time to figure out which brand you like best. It makes it taste a little better, knowing you’re eating the best. Get ready for the season with holiday popcorn gifts! Read more

Popcorn Facts and Tidbits

It’s no surprise that a snack food we all enjoy so much would have a rich list of facts and tidbits:

Ears of popping corn have been discovered in caves that date back over 4000 years Corn was cooked in lard during the 1800′s. The popped product was skimmed as it rose to the top.

In 1996 a 12 foot popcorn ball was constructed. It used over 2000 pounds of popcorn.

Popcorn can be strung as a popular Christmas tree garland.

Cretors and Co. Invented the first mobile popcorn machines in 1885. They are still in business today.

Some American Indian tribes believed that there was a single spirit residing inside each unpopped kernel of popcorn. As the kernels were heated and heated they would shake with anger. When they got angry enough, the spirits would come screaming out in a burst of hot air.

16th century explorer Hernando Cortez was met by Aztecs wearing popcorn as decoration on their headdresses.

When the early colonists had the first Thanksgiving on October 15, 1621, an Indian named Quadequina brought an offering for the feast. A giant deerskin bag of popped corn.

Popcorn was served like cereal by colonial housewives. It was eaten for breakfast with cream and sugar.

The Albert Dickinson Co. Introduced Little Buster and Big Buster Popcorn. They are some of the first name brands of popcorn.

American Pop Corn Company and founder Cloid H. Smith produced the first nationwide name brand popcorn, Jolly Time. The brand’s name grew rapidly based on its Guaranteed to Pop statement.

As a result of sugar rationing during WWII many sweets were unavailable. Americans consumed as much as 3 times as much popcorn during this period.

Each American eats an average of 54 quarts of popcorn each year. Read more

Who Invented Popcorn First?

Who can we thank for inventing popcorn first? The exact origins of popcorn aren’t truly known. We can narrow it down to a few different groups, and one or two general geographic areas, but that’s all we know about who invented popcorn first. The only thing that seems certain: popcorn began in the America’s. Popcorn has been around a long time. In fact, there is evidence of popping kernels in some very old archaeological sites. There have also been discoveries of crude popcorn poppers and some quite ornate.

Popcorn has been found in some unusual sites. I am a huge popcorn fan, however when my time on earth is through, I certainly don’t plan to be buried with popcorn. Yet that is just what seems to have happened with some of the ancient inhabitants of modern-day Peru. A tomb that has been dated to be over 1,000 years old, was found to contain unpopped popcorn grains. The deceased revered the popcorn enough to try and take it with him. His loved ones had preserved the kernels very well. When a few of the unpopped kernels were heated, they popped right up.

The Bat Cave, located in West Central New Mexico, contained whole ears of popcorn kernels. The original archaeologist have dated the ears to be 5,600 years old. There has been some debate as to the exact age of these samples. Some of the low estimates come at over 1750 years old. There are a few other opinions in between those two. It’s interesting to see how important our popcorn is – it has sparked an academic debate!

Possibly the oldest popcorn find was not actual kernels. It was pollen. A sample was found in a site that was buried 200 feet below Mexico City. The pollen was no longer active. It was in fact fossilized, but what else could be expected from a sample that was 80,000-years old. Read more

What Makes Popcorn Pop

We all enjoy popcorn in its finished popped up state, but what makes popcorn pop? We constantly try to find the brands and methods, that leave the fewest unpopped kernels. Most of us only give thought to kernels of unpopped corn at one time, when we reach the bottom of our bowl and find the last few unpopped kernels. What we normally don’t think about, is the process between the two stages. How do we get a snack ready popcorn from each kernel.

Native American tribes were believed to have been the first to make popcorn pop. They had their own spiritual belief about the popcorn popping process. They believed that spirits resided inside of each kernel. When the spirit’s home (the kernel), began to be heated (cooked, usually by heating a bowl of sand that the kernels were buried in), the spirit would be so angry that their entire house would shake (the agitated vibration of cooking kernels). Then, when the spirit finally got angry enough, it would burst forth from it’s home with a screaming hiss (the air releasing upon the actual pop).

It’s a great story. Considering the Native American belief in spirits, it fits the process very well. In the thousands of years since the Native Americans began popping corn, we’ve learned there is a little more science to the process. While we refer to it as popcorn, not all corn will pop. The kernels that we use to make popcorn pop are one of a select few types of corn that will actually cook into our favorite snack. Now that we have the right type of corn to make popcorn, next comes the heat. The heat’s affect on the small starch lined sack that resides in each kernel is what really makes popcorn pop. This sack is filled with a tiny drop of water. Water, that as the temperature rises, becomes steam. Once this steam reaches a temperature of 450 it expands with incredible pressure. That pressure causes the starch pocket, as well as the entire shell of the kernel around it to burst open. Read more

Popcorn History

Popcorn, like many other American staples, has some close associations in our minds.  Popcorn and the movie theater go hand in hand.  Popcorn and baseball have shared a bond since 1908 when popcorn made it’s “buy some peanuts and cracker jacks” appearance in the song Take Me Out To The Ball Game.  While the history of popcorn is surely American it is actually even pre-American.

Popcorn has been found in several archaeological sites.  Some archaeologists figure the popcorn at these sites to be as much as 4000 years old.  Others say these same caves are more likely from around 100-200 AD.  Either way, that is some old popcorn history.  These early popcorn eaters didn’t have the convenient machines that we do today.  They cooked their popcorn kernels by burying them in a sand filled bowl and heating it.  As the sand got hot enough the kernels would pop up to the top of the sand.  We recommend eating your popcorn within a few months of purchase, but some of the popcorn found at these sites still popped when heated.

Popcorn was a luxury during the depression era.  It turned out to be one of the luxuries that people were able to afford.  Single bags cost between 5-10 cents.  The young men who sold these bags were profiting 70 cents out of every dollar, making the popcorn vendor a great job at a tough time in history.

In more recent history, popcorn has risen and fallen with the television era.  The television era beginning in the 1950′s hurt theater attendance.  Consequently, the popcorn business suffered as well.  Then, home popping grew in popularity and popcorn’s relationship with television became nearly as strong as its ties to the movies.  After the introduction of the microwave oven and microwave popcorn, popcorn sales became stronger than ever.  In the 1990′s, microwave popcorn sales accounted for over $240 million dollars in revenue.

Popcorn Nutrition Facts-calories

Popcorn is an all natural, very nutritious and per cup is one of the lowest calorie foods you can have. There are many caveats about those statements, though, and popcorn can quickly escalate to a caloric nightmare if you’re not careful.

Very few people are aware that a large bucket of popcorn at some movie theatres contains more fat than five Big Macs. In these cases, it isn’t the popcorn’s fault at all. It is in the special butteroil which is generally only available to popcorn retailers. It adds that special movie popcorn taste, but it is also composed of nearly 100% fat. Some movie theatres serve giant buckets of butteroiled popcorn which contain over 2,600 calories, or the equivalent of six pounds of supermarket ice cream!

Air popped popcorn contains only 30 calories per cup. You would be hard pressed to find anything else edible that would fill a cup with that light of a caloric hit! Note that this is strictly air popped with no fats added. The problem is that in most cases an enormous amount of fat in the form of oil is added and the calories skyrocket. Read more