Ever since bright yellow, spicy, roasted corn soup was ladled over a sprinkling of popcorn in my bowl at a gourmet Indian restaurant, I have been thinking about popcorn in a whole new light.
I have been increasingly thinking of it as food rather than as packaging material or a crunching nuisance spoiling my cinema experience.
Jokes aside, some overzealous eco-minded retailers did try using popcorn as an alternative to Styrofoam. It turned out to be both a hazard and a disastrous idea.
Perhaps those bags of coloured popcorn we pelted one another with as kids made me not consider it as a food. Then again, some of the popcorn served at one of the big movie chains nearby — especially at morning screenings — isn’t really edible. I have reason to think that the cold popcorn they dish out is left over from the previous night.
Popcorn is a type of food, in fact a good one nutritionally speaking, and has been eaten for thousands of years. I certainly like the smell.
I rather wonder what went through the mind of that first Native American when he saw a little seed magically transformed into a white puff. There is evidence of early humans popping corn in heated sand. The conquistadors found it among the Aztecs and the Peruvian Indians, where it was also used in sacred ceremonies and for decoration. Some people still thread garlands of popcorn and even use it as Christmas decor.
Popcorn received its big boost during the Great Depression when mobile steam and gas-powered poppers first appeared. At between 5c and 10c a bag, it was one of the few affordable treats.
Consumption of popcorn trebled during World War II.
Then, in the 1980s, microwave popcorn was born, instantly offering an assortment of flavours and a fool-proof method of popping.
The biggest consumers remain North Americans who annually consume about 200 cups for every man, woman and child, only a third of it at cinemas and stadiums. The Midwest produces a staggering 400000 tonnes; consider that 30g makes four cups when popped.
The fastest growing markets are the United States’s neighbour Mexico, South Korea, Japan and China.
Remember when ready-to-eat popcorn (with flavours such as white cheddar or green onion) packaged like crisps became a brief craze in the 1990s? Today, on limited shelf space in our supermarkets, local brands retail at about R100/kg; imports at R200/kg; weigh that up against unpopped which sells at only R13/kg. None of the readymade compare with my homemade.
Popcorn is currently outperformed by sales of potato and corn chips and many other snacks, so sellers are turning to its health properties: high fibre, low calorie, carbohydrate rich, sodium and sugar-free. Yet the calories can be deceptive. Air-popped popcorn has only 31 calories a cup; oil popped has 55; most microwave brands more. But when lightly buttered, the calories can rise up to 133.
Some movie theatres in the US use coconut oil to pop the corn and add margarine; one of these super-sized buckets can have far more calories than a double burger.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, popcorn is the one corn product that is least likely to have any genetically engineered modifications, although plans are under way.
The scientific name for the maize used for popcorn is Zea mays everta. The kernel can be red and even black (I’ve seen these ears in Peru), but only white and yellow varieties are in commercial use. Sweet and field corn do not pop and neither will popcorn straight after harvesting. It needs to dry out a bit to a moisture content of 13.5%.
It keeps well; apparently they have even managed to pop 3 000-year-old corn; but don’t store yours in a refrigerator as it may dehydrate the kernels.
How does the seed pop? A science primer is in order here. When heat is applied, the temperature of water inside the kernel goes up and turns to steam.
When it gets to 180°C it reaches a pressure of about 930 kilopascals, expanding the endosperm until it explodes through the hull to form that familiar little white cloud of starch that can be 40 times its original size.
Overheated popcorn forms hard balls. The unpopped kernels (in good popcorn this should be less than 2%), those gravelly bits that threaten to break your teeth in the darkness of the movie house, are known (stupidly) as “old maids” by the industry. There are ways to re-pop them after a few days.
The flakes are categorised as either the large, fluffy, irregular “butterfly” or the ball-shaped, denser “mushroom”.
To my mouth, the butterfly flakes are much more satisfying, but the hardier mushroom shape is usually what you’ll find in packets of ready-popped corn as they survive better in packaging.
If you search “Chinese making popcorn” on YouTube you’ll see how roadside vendors in Beijing heat the kernels in a cast-iron cylinder rotated over an open brazier. When hammered open, the corn all pops at once with a spectacular explosion, flying into a large canvas sack.
In South Africa we have amakiepkiep, the multicoloured sweet township popcorn (a successful T-shirt brand called Ama Kip Kip, that caters for the youth, has since popped up). It comes from kiep-kiep, the onomatopoetic expression for calling chickens, itself derived from the Dutch “kip” meaning fowl.
To make amakiepkiep, pop 500g of popcorn — heat butter (4 tablespoons), sugar (600g) and water (125ml) until the sugar is dissolved; divide this mixture into several batches and colour each with blue, red, green, yellow or orange or whatever food colourant takes your fancy. Pour over the popcorn in separate bowls, coating it and stirring; too much butter and your popcorn will be soggy.
For the more adventurous, there are even recipes (I haven’t tried any of them) where popcorn is ground finely in a food blender and used to make popcorn bread (with mielie meal), or muffins (with sugar and flour and almonds) or even used in a meatloaf.
Popcorn can be made into a crust for macaroni and cheese, or with peanuts to encrust deep-fried Thai chicken.
If those recipes aren’t funny enough, let me conclude with the use of popcorn in humour. Archbishop Fulton J Sheen is quoted as having said: “Hearing nuns’ confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.”
To visit the heartland of popcorn, you could visit the Popcorn Festival, next month, August 12 to 15, in Van Buren, Indiana (it has been going since 1973), or join the many activities at the 30th anniversary of the Marion Popcorn Festival, September 9 to 11, in Marion, Ohio.