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The History Of Popcorn

French explorers in saw the Iroquois people popping corn in clay pots; and the Winnebago Indians who lived near the Great Lakes simply drove sticks into the cobs and held the cobs near the fire. Popcorn soup was a favorite method of using the grain among the Iroquois, and the Indians of Central America even made popcorn beer. Early explorers observed ornamental necklaces, bouquets, and headdresses made of popcorn. In early America, popcorn became a ritual part of many festivities including quilting bees and barn raisings.

In cabins and homesteads, corn could be popped in the fire-place, seasoned with grease or butter, and shared by the family. Popped kernels were used as teeth in Halloween pumpkins and strung in long ropes to festoon Christmas trees. Popcorn was the accompaniment to banjo playing, singing, and the telling of ghost stories and folktales. In the s, the first puffed cereal was created by pouring milk and sugar over popped corn; this breakfast dish was popular from Boston south to the Carolinas.


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Popcorn was grown in family gardens or farms or bought from neighbors who grew more than they needed until about when it started to become recognized as a legitimate cash crop. The first automatic popcorn popper was a steam-powered machine invented by Charlie Cretors in ; before Cretors' invention, street vendors popped corn in wire baskets over open fires. By about , the glass-sided popcorn machine with its gasoline burner became a popular feature of the circus, carnival, sideshow, local fair, and small town streets where popcorn vendors would sell bags of popcorn as dusk fell.

The packaging of popcorn for use at home began in about In , Fred and Louis Rueckheim used the Chicago World's Fair to kick off their blend of popcorn, peanuts, and molasses. These German brothers made their name in America by manufacturing Cracker Jack, as this mixture came to be called, in a small kitchen and then at the World's Fair. In order to claim a prize, the consumer could mail in a coupon found in every box of Cracker Jack. After the Fair and until World War II, prizes were actually packed in the boxes, although this practice stopped during the War because the prizes were made in Japan.

After the War, a bonus prize returned to every box. When moving pictures became the rage and movie houses opened across the country, the street vendors of popcorn would rent space outside the theaters and sell bags of popcorn to movie ticket buyers. In , Charles T. Manley perfected his electric popcorn machine, and popcorn vendors moved inside the theater where the trapped sounds and smells of popping corn often made more money than the feature film. During the Great Depression in the s, vendors sold popcorn in five-cent bags, and popcorn became one of few affordable luxuries. Meanwhile, back in the theater, the paper bucket replaced the bag as the container for popcorn because the rustling bags made too much noise.

During World War II, popcorn was taken overseas as a treat for American servicemen and was adopted by other countries. In , Percy Spencer applied microwave energy to popcorn and found that it popped; his discovery led to experiments with other foods and development of the microwave oven. Television brought popcorn into the home in the s, when electric popcorn poppers and pre-packed corn for popping were developed and marketed.

The s and s witnessed a boom in electric poppers, hot-air poppers, and microwave popcorn as the videotape industry brought movies and the desire for all the customs associated with movie-going into the home. Selection of the best variety or hybrid of popcorn to be grown and processed for the kind of popcorn to be sold is critical to the raw materials comprising popcorn. In some forms of popcorn, the corn itself is the only raw material.

For other methods of marketing popcorn such as microwave popcorn, soybean oil, salt, and flavoring are also needed. There are several commercial classifications of corn. Field corn also called dent corn or cow corn is fed to animals. Flour corn is mostly starchy center with a soft hull that allows it to be easily ground into flour.

Sweet corn is the kind we eat at the dinner table. Flint corn is usually called Indian corn; its colorful kernels make it highly attractive, and it is used for decoration because it is tough and tasteless. Over the years, many improvements were made to the original popper prototype, which made the snack even more accessible to the masses. As popcorn grew in popularity, it began to appear in all sorts of variations.

Louis Ruckheim came up with the first version of Cracker Jack, made from popcorn, peanuts and molasses, during the late s. Surprisingly, theater owners were not on board with popcorn sales in the beginning. They thought it might create an unnecessary nuisance in addition to requiring expensive changes, like installing outside vents to rid the building of smoky popcorn odors.

Hawkers, seeing the potential in popcorn sales, took matters into their own hands and began selling popcorn and Cracker Jack while walking up and down the theater aisles. The Depression eventually changed the minds of theater owners, and they began to view it as a small luxury that patrons could afford. Unlike most treats, popcorn sales actually rose during the Depression.


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Instead of installing indoor concession areas, theaters charged outside vendors a dollar a day to sell popcorn from outdoor stands. In Glen W. Dickson, the owner of several theaters throughout the Midwest, began installing popcorn machines in the lobbies of his theaters. The construction changes were costly, but he recovered his investment quickly and his profits skyrocketed.

The trend spread quickly.

A History of Popcorn

Can you imagine walking into a movie theater today without the scent of popcorn welcoming you inside? Recently the GMO debate has gained steam here in the U. The majority of corn grown in the United States is genetically modified. According to Jeffrey Smith, a GMO expert, the popcorn variety of corn has not yet been genetically modified.

This means there is no genetically modified popcorn currently available on the market. Weelicious — Popcorn Trail Mix.

Research Sources

Simply Recipes — Caramel Corn. Pass the Sushi — Halloween Popcorn. Responsible Technology Shopping Guide , A Social History of Popcorn in America.


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University of South Carolina. Once reserved for specialty shops and county fairs, kettle corn has recently become popular, especially in the microwave popcorn market. The popcorn maker is a relatively new home appliance , and its popularity is increasing because it offers the opportunity to add flavors of the consumer's own choice and to choose healthy-eating popcorn styles.

Air-popped popcorn is naturally high in dietary fiber and antioxidants , [27] low in calories and fat, and free of sugar and sodium. For the sake of flavor, however, large amounts of fat, sugar, and sodium are often added to prepared popcorn, which can quickly convert it to a very poor choice for those on restricted diets. One particularly notorious example of this first came to public attention in the mids, when the Center for Science in the Public Interest produced a report about "Movie Popcorn", which became the subject of a widespread publicity campaign.

The movie theaters surveyed used coconut oil to pop the corn, and then topped it with butter or margarine. For example, according to DietFacts. However, in studies conducted by the Motion Picture Association of America it was found that the average American only attends six movies a year and that movie theater popcorn and other movie theater snacks are viewed as a treat that is not intended to be part of a regular diet. Popcorn is included on the list of foods that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends not serving to children under four, because of the risk of choking.

Microwaveable popcorn represents a special case, since it is designed to be cooked along with its various flavoring agents. One of these formerly common artificial-butter flavorants, diacetyl , has been implicated in causing respiratory illnesses in microwave popcorn factory workers, also known as "popcorn lung.

Popcorn, threaded onto a string, is used as a wall or Christmas tree decoration in some parts of North America , [37] [38] as well as on the Balkan peninsula. Some shipping companies have experimented with using popcorn as a biodegradable replacement for expanded polystyrene packing material.

However, popcorn has numerous undesirable properties as a packing material, including attractiveness to pests , flammability , and a higher cost and greater density than expanded polystyrene. A more processed form of expanded corn foam has been developed to overcome some of these limitations. Former title holders were located in Indianapolis , Indiana , and three more times previously in Sac City.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Popcorn disambiguation.

A Brief History of Chopsticks

Oxford University Press, pp. Retrieved 2 January Retrieved June 27, School Project Becomes Law" Press release. Illinois Government News Network. Archived from the original on Retrieved 25 July The Social History of Popcorn in America. Univ of South Carolina Press. The snack with even higher antioxidants levels than fruits and vegetables". Retrieved 28 October The New York Times.

URL retrieved Jan 6 Retrieved 2 September Glucose syrup High-fructose corn syrup Public relations High-maltose corn syrup.

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