December 18, 2019 • 38 mins
America's favorite movie theater snack involves 7,000 years of history and fascinating physics. In this corny but classic episode, Anney and Lauren explore how popcorn pops -- and how it basically got the theater industry through the Great Depression.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Favor production of I Heart Radio
and Stuff Media. I'm Annies and I'm Lauren voc Obaum,
and today we have a classic episode for you about popcorn,
one of my all time very favorite foods. Yes, and
this is one of my all time very favorite episodes,
I think. Yeah, it was a really fun one. And
I didn't realize that popcorn played such a huge role
(00:28):
in our our movie industry here. Yeah. Yeah, because it
kind of is responsible for movies surviving, the film industry
surviving through the depression. Yes, and right now we are
in kind of a big movie season. Uh. We got
Frozen too, Star Wars is coming out. Um, but there's
(00:49):
also a lot of Oscar contenders. Yeah. And as part
of that, Lauren and I actually got to guest on
a friend of the show and one of the hosts
of Stuff you should know, Chuck co worker Chuck his
show movie Crash, and we talked about Knives. Yes. Yeah, yeah,
So so Annie and and I and our our coworker
Casey all went to a showing of Knives out together.
(01:11):
Annie had already seen it, but she was just as
excited the second time around. Um, and yeah, we got
to sit down on a panel with Chuck and just
discuss how much we heck and loved the film because
it was delight and also, I mean, it was delightful.
And also I got a giant, giant tub of popcorn. Yeah.
I was very happy about that because I didn't get
any and you were after me in the concession line,
(01:32):
and you know, I was having that I've got popcorn.
Then I turned around and Lauren, you it up. Oh yeah,
I got up sold really hard. Um. Yeah, I noticed
that you didn't get any, and I was like, all right,
thank you. You knew I wanted it deep down, and
I did. But I've been having five been seeing a
lot of movies lately and it's been fun. Um. But
(01:54):
the panel was also. Yeah. And if you if you
are a human who enjoys film culture and technical discussions
and interviews with really awesome human people, um, then yeah,
check out the movie Crush podcast. It's called movie Crush.
It's available wherever fine podcasts are found. Um and uh yeah,
(02:14):
enjoy this this classic episode about popcorn. Hello, and welcome
to food Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelba and I'm Andy Reese,
and today we're talking about popcorn. Popcorn is one of
(02:40):
Annie's very favorite things on the planet. Like she's just
sitting she's sort of vibrating right now. I know Lauren
recently gave me some popcorn and I had three bags
in it, and I ate all three bags that day,
like not even it was maybe two hour period. I
realized after I left that day that like, maybe I
shouldn't have left you with that much microwave popcorn. I
(03:02):
can't resist. I probably mentioned popcorn at least once a day.
I don't know how. Um, I love it. It's delicious.
There's a place downstairs that's really good popcorn. Oh oh yeah, yeah,
it's dangerous. I know. Every day I'm like, I could,
I could go down. They could just be there right now.
And I also recently just went into a movie theater
(03:23):
to get the popcorn and the guy was like, so well,
which he was going to direct me to. The theater
was like, oh no, this is this is all I'm
here for. I'm leaving. I just got my popcorn. That's
all that's all I wanted. Um that aside. We are
currently recording this uh in November, and in a round
this time of year, a lot of big movies come
(03:44):
out popcorn is a thing at movie theaters. It is,
and that is the thing that we will be talking about. Yeah,
that story is great. Yeah, but also if you're like me,
maybe you just eat popcorn all the time movie or
not you think about it all the time. Maybe or not.
In either case, popcorn? What is it? What is it? Well,
it's a type of corn kernel scientifically known as zamis
(04:06):
everta that when dried and then exposed to heat, pops
into this lovely cloud like thing. There are about varieties
of corn that do this, but the two that we
use the most are rice popcorn the kernels kind of
looked like rice, huh, and pearl popcorn. Guess what they
look like? Pearls. Yeah. So you've got the outside, this
hard hull, and then outer indo sperm, which surrounds the
(04:28):
starchy white inner in indo sperm with an ideal moisture
of about thirty five percent. The moisture is important because
at around two and twelve degrees fahrenheit are one hundred
degrees celsius. The moisture turns the steam until it causes
the kernel to rip apart inside out like, increasing in
size by about twenty to forty times giving you popcorn handling.
(04:50):
An exposure to air can impact the moisture content, which
is why you're advised historic kernels and an air tight container.
If the package has been opened until you're to pop them.
That's because the steam alone will not make a popcorn
kernel explode. Every successful kernel of popcorn is a tiny
pressure cooker. The hull holds in the moisture and the
(05:12):
increasing heat because you're not just heating the kernels two
waters boiling point. You take them all the way up
to a d eighty degrease celsius or three hundred and
fifty six degrees fahrenheit. I'm being precise about this because
this is the number. This is the number at which
the vast majority of popcorn Colonel's pop uh so so
pressure okay, builds up inside the kernel all the way
(05:33):
to a hundred and thirty five pounds per square inch,
which is, by the way, about twice as much pressure
as there is inside of a bottle of champagne or
semitruck tire oh champagne reference um. The pressure overwhelms the
structural integrity of the hull, and the whole thing bursts.
If you mess with the whole you'll wind up with
the dad. You don't want a dad. You don't want
(05:54):
to dad. But why does the kernel go off luffy?
The trapped steam basically gelatinizes the content of the kernel,
so when the whole bursts and the contents spill out,
air is forced into that matrix of proteins and starches,
creating a foam that rapidly cools into that solid fluff.
(06:14):
And timing is key here. Heating popcorn too quickly doesn't
give the insides time to gelatinize, but heating it too
slowly will make the tip of the kernel soft, allowing
steam to leak out instead of building up. The distinctive
noise that popcorn makes when it pops was only figured
out for certain in when researchers out of France used
high speed imaging and audio recordings to take a closer
(06:36):
look at popcorn. Uh. It's the noise of water vapor
escaping rapidly, amplified by the cavity that it's leaving inside
the kernel. They also found that the colonels jump when
they pop because the first like leg of expanding starch
that escapes from the hull uh and and hits the
pan or the bag will first compress from the change
(06:56):
in pressure and then expand rapidly, and this action work
like a springer or like like your leg, vaulting the
kernel into the air. The researchers developed this imaging equipment
not to study popcorn, but rather to study the physical
dynamics of living plants, like how trees break during storms.
They bent it towards popcorn to give physics teachers a
(07:17):
fun way to demonstrate difficult principles to their students. They
told the l A Times, this literally gives an appetite
for science. That's excellent. M and it is a very
popular snack food at the movies, like we mentioned, but
also more generally. When I was in threw it was
served before a lot of my meals. It's kind of
like you know, your chips. They had popcorn, and people
(07:39):
purchased one billion, one million, two sixty two thousand pounds
of popcorn. And Americans eat about thirteen billion quarts a year,
which comes out to forty two quarts of persons. I
bet a lot of that's most of the world's popcorn
has grown in the American Midwest, and the best time
for sales is in the fall. It's the official state
(08:02):
snack of Illinois State snacks. Still don't understand it. You've
got a lot to learn, Lauren. The popcorn industry comes
with its own set of fun terminology. Oh yeah, the
kernel is called the flake. Popability refers to the percent
amount of popped kernels. The two basic popcorn shapes are
butterfly and mushroom. Mushroom is a sturdier and more often
(08:25):
used in candy wild Butterfly is bigger and more pleasing
to the eye. So when you get straight up popcorn,
it's probably butterfly. Un pop popcorn are called spinsters, but
they should be called Bachelorett's right, and a quality popcorn
should yield less than two percent of those And who
could forget the bridesmaids are the kernels that partially pop Well,
(08:48):
I didn't know that we were going to run into
such like weirdly gendered. I know, terminology and the popcorn episode.
It's everywhere we can make we can make everything weird.
That's great, And hey, that's a great transition to go
to a break for a word from one of our
lovely and not weird sponsors. And we're back, Thank you sponsor. Okay,
(09:20):
so here's where we get into the history of popcorn,
which is not going to be a history of corn
too much, way too much. Well, come back on a
later date, all right. The type of maze that gives
us popcorn was domesticated around five thousand BC in Central
and South America. Researchers think that all early corns might
(09:44):
have been popcorn. Non popping varieties would really only be
developed later through cultivation. And it wasn't that folks didn't
like popcorn and we're trying to cultivate away from it.
It's it's just that popcorn is generally inedible when it's
raw due to the thickness and hardness of the hull,
so you'd have to either end it into a flower
or pop it in order to make some use out
of it. Ancient corn cobs found on Pru's northern coast
(10:06):
suggests that people have been eating popcorn for over six thousand,
seven hundred years. They most likely would wrap the corn
and place it on coals or roasted in a fire,
and it wasn't something they would have enjoyed frequently. Right.
That evidence seems to say that it was either a
delicacy or just an occasional addition. To the diet. Colonels
(10:28):
and popcorn discovered by Herbert Dick and Earl Smith in
in a cave called the Bat Cave in New Mexico.
Wait that bat cave? Are we sure? Yeah? Not that
bat cave? Wow? Still probably pretty interesting place. Oh yeah.
The kernels and popcorn discovered there were carbondated to five thousand,
(10:50):
six d years old. The colonels were in such good
condition they could still pop. They didn't pop them, they
studied them, but they could have popped them. Oh man, Yeah.
Circup three hundred CE Mexico. Funeral urns with images of
Amaze God show him sporting a headdress decorated with popcorn.
Signs of popcorn pop up all over Central and South
(11:14):
America over the next centuries, especially prevalent in Mexico, Peru,
and Guatemala. The web blow and Iroquois for sure consumed popcorn.
French explorers wrote that the Iroquois placed colonels and pots
filled with hot sand to pop them. I love all
these like innovation ways to find pop popcorn. According to
(11:37):
a couple of historians, some Native American tribes believed each
popcorn kernel housed peaceful spirits. Well, they were peaceful until
you started heating out their house, which made them shake
the kernels with increasing anger, until pop they bust out,
leaving a cloud of steam in their week. And I
think I read somewhere I don't believe this is true,
but I read that, like when you say someone steaming
(11:57):
with anger, that's what it's about. Um. And that brings
us to the early sixteenth century when popcorn was a
particular significance to the Aztecs. Talking about the Aztecs again,
Apart from snacking on it, they use popcorn as a decoration,
as embellishments for ceremonies, ornamental decoration on statues of their gods.
Bernardino de Sahagoon wrote in his observations of popcorn's importance
(12:21):
to the Aztecs. Quote and also a number of young
women danced, having so vowed a popcorn dance. As thick
as tassels of maize were their popcorn garlands. Yeah, popcorn dance.
Another written account by a Spanish observer of an Aztec
ceremony described it thusly. They scattered before him parched corn
called mono kittle, kind of corn which burst when parched
(12:44):
and discloses its contents, and makes itself look like a
very white flower. They said these were hailstones given to
the god of water yep. And there was even a
word in the Aztec language for the sound of several
colonels popping at the same time, Toto PoCA, speaking of
the Spanish. After Cortez invaded the Aztec Empire in fifteen nineteen,
(13:04):
one of the spoils he spread around the world was popcorn,
and slowly people started to figure out how it worked.
Felix de Zara encountered popcorn during his exploration of Paraguay,
writing world and fat are oil. The grains burst without
becoming detached, and their results a super bouquet fit to
adorn a lady's hair at night without anyone knowing what
(13:25):
it was. I've often eaten these burst greens and found
them very good. Well wow, what words of praise. As
colonists arrived to the New World, the Native Americans introduced
them to popcorn, a snack they adopted as their own.
The colonist and also sometimes added milk and sugar too
as a sort of popcorn cereal yeah first first air
popped breakfast cereal yeah. And also also sometimes they would
(13:50):
pop it with some molasses to make something kind of
like today's kettle corn. And guess who enjoyed the whole
popcorn as a cereal. Years later, one John Harvey Kellogg, Yes,
that killer. He approved of something he did heck and
his wife Ella, She called it an excellent food. And
(14:11):
John lauded popcorn as quote easily digestible and to the
highest degree wholesome, presenting the grain in its entirety, and
hints superior to many d natured breakfast foods which are
found in the market. Yeah, well, there you go, Kellogg,
always popping up. I didn't even mean to do it, Okay.
(14:32):
By the eighteen twenties, popcorn colonels being sold under the
names pearl or non par yell. Never know how to
pronounce that, for sure, but it's the same word used
for sprinkles in the Eastern US, and John Russell Bartlett
included popcorn and his Dictionary of Americanisms. Despite being a
popular snack in the colonies, they found it not only tasty,
(14:53):
but entertaining. You had to get your entertainment somehow. In
the nineteenth century, people didn't really have a great way
to pop popcorn. They tried all kinds of things, though,
including throwing kernels and hot ash into kettles of hot
lard or butter, or into these wire boxes attached to
a long wooden handle, and then you'd stick them over
a fire. That was the most popular way. Enter Charles
(15:16):
Creeturs of Chicago's Seas, of Chicago's Sea, Creeters and Company,
that's a lot of seas and creatres showed up to
Chicago's World Columbian Exposition with general Please, I don't know
if you could hear that, but it was there a
mobile popcorn machine. Scientific American described it like this. The apparatus,
(15:37):
which is light and strong and weighing but four hundred
or five hundred pounds, can be drawn readily by a
boy or by a small pony to any picnic ground, fair,
political rally, et cetera, and too many other places where
a good business could be done for a day or two.
Creeters was the owner of a candy store, and he
got the idea for the mobile popcorn machine after working
(15:58):
on improving his peanut roasting machine. Seen both were powered
by steam and by He brought horse drawn popcorn wagons
to the scene. Uh and cracker jacks. Cracker jacks such
as for those of you don't know, it's the snack. Um.
It's a mix of molasses covered popcorn and peanuts. It
debuted in the eighteen nineties. Um. That name, by the way,
(16:20):
probably comes from the popular sling at the time meaning
first rate or excellent cracker jack, cracker Jack. Yeah. And
the song take me out to the ballgame with the
line buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks came out
in nineteen eight and we still sing this at baseball
games in the US. Yeah, yeah, what do you sing
in baseball games in other countries? Let us know exactly
we had that thought as as as I was saying.
(16:41):
The American Popcorn Company was founded by Cloyd Smith and
Sioux City, Iowa, in nineteen fourteen, and they released America's
first popcorn brand, jolly Time, Jolly Time, Jolly Time. They
started selling it in cans with the ambitious slogan guaranteed
to pop. Oh yeah, that's not what it was at
the time. Really, No, it really wasn't. Due to its
(17:04):
low price, relative abundance, and ease of preparation, popcorn experienced
bumps during times of hardship like the Great Depression and
World War Two. In fact, it was one of the
few businesses that thrived during the Great Depression, with stories
like this one. One Oklahoma banker, newly out of a
job after his bank closed shop, bought a popcorn machine
(17:24):
and started selling it outside of a theater, and from
that alone, he made enough money to buy back three
farms he'd lost in two years. That's kind of stunning. Yeah,
and this all ties into how popcorn became like the
ultimate movie theater snack, right, So how did that happen? Well?
At first, movie theaters really turned up their noses at
(17:46):
the idea. They were not excited about it. They didn't
want people getting popcorn all over their beautiful auditoriums. They
wanted it to be a place for the elite, attracting
all those rich movie goers, and they didn't want the
loud and munching a popcorn are the unsightly trash it
would generate, impating that. In seven though, the talkies or
(18:08):
movies with sound, start grazing theater screens, which meant a
wider audience since viewers no longer needed to be literate
to enjoy a film, and by nineteen thirty ninety million
people a week, we're going to the movies. Theater owners
were thinking of ways to capitalize on this, and with
the introduction of sound, selling snacks didn't sound like such
a terrible idea anymore, but still the potential from mess
(18:28):
really concerned them. Sometimes hawkers would go around the theater
owners walk govern down the aisles selling popcorn. However, the
Great Depression changed that people could still afford to go
to the movies, and they could also afford a five
to ten cent bag of popcorn, you know, one of
those small luxuries like like lips write something exactly um.
(18:49):
For the theater owners, they could get years of popcorn
from a ten dollar bag of kernels. Street vendors with
their own popcorn carts camped outside of theaters to sell bags.
Patron went in. This is one of my favorite facts
of the episode. This practice was so rampant. Movie theaters
had signs that requested movie goers check their popcorn with
their coade. What check your popcorn? Check your popcorn if
(19:12):
there was a sign up. Now, like, there's been times
where I like popcorn in my first I gotta check
my popcorn. Um. At the time, most movie theaters didn't
have the ventilation to house popcorn machines, but they couldn't
ignore the siren's call of popcorn profits as more and
more of their customers walked in with bags of the stuff,
(19:32):
so they leased what they called lobby privileges to vendors,
charging them a daily fee to sell popcorn in the lobby.
This arrangement saved a good chunk of theaters from going
underder them during the Great Depression. That didn't stop theater
owners for looking for ways to get rid of the
vendors and making their own popcorn and massively increasing their profits.
(19:53):
One example of how lucrative the popcorn business could be
in theaters. Dallas Movie Theater Chain invested in popcorn machines
for eighty of their theaters, but in five movie houses
they considered their best, they abstained, believing it would tarnish
their fancy pants reputation. The ones without the popcorn machines
almost went under in the next two years, while those
(20:13):
theaters with the popcorn machines saw their profits shoot way up.
Movie theaters realized this popcorn thing and snacks in general,
or where the money was. It's so so popcorn basically
like made the movie industry possible. Yeah, it's they're so
tied together. This growth couldn't be sustained, however, and theater
(20:34):
saw steady decrease in profits in the fifties and sixties.
And what was to blame the television. More and more
Americans were staying at home and watching the mood Tube
in the comfort of their own home, at their home,
in their home. Uh. And they were doing this rather
than going out to the movies. And this meant trouble
for popcorn too, because it wasn't easy to make it
(20:56):
at home. Yes, in you three easy pop appeared in
our grocery store shelves. All you had to do was
placed the covered aluminum pie plate looking thing over heat
source for one minute, the aluminum foil covering would kind
of balloon one out popcorn. A little later they changed
their name to one you might recognize, Jiffy Pop. And
(21:19):
this always makes me think of the movie screen. Oh, yeah,
that that opening, that opening scene. Yeah, poor Drew Barrymore,
Poor Drew Barrymore. Oh. I wanted to put in here
one of the notes that I found while I was
researching um food. Timeline dot Org has this clip from
a nineteen sixty two issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune
which describes a package of of this one brand of
popcorn TV time that included a feedbag for kids to wear.
(21:45):
It was like a plastic apron with this big pocket
across the front. So I guess you could carry your
popcorn around with you. I mean I would, The writer
was suggesting a second use for the apron is like
a trick or treating excess three feedbag for you know.
It sounds um lovely and I'm sure you you were
(22:06):
the coolest kid on the street if you went chicken treating.
Oh yeah, but you've got your popcorn in one pocket
candy in the other. I mean, clearly you have to
organize these. Oh yeah, yeah, you've got to. But that's
a good. That's a good, you know, you know, keep
keep yourself sustained for the entire trick or training. But
I'm sure you could laugh a lot longer. Yeah. Meanwhile,
(22:26):
farmers and food scientists were busy working on growing the
least wasteful, best popping popcorn possible. The first commercial popcorn
hybrid was released in nineteen thirty four, and the U.
S d A's Bureau of Plant Industry got pretty heavily
involved to help out. Between the nineteen fifties and today,
agricultural research would reduce the rate of unpopped kernels by
(22:49):
s wow. By the nineteen seventies, more and more American
households owned a microwave, and as you might guess, this
is a big deal for in home popcorn make and eating.
Orville Redd and Bocker. That Redden Bocker. Yep, that Redden Bocker. Uh.
This is a family of farmers that survived through the
Great Depression thanks to popcorn. They released their namesake popcorn
(23:12):
in nineteen seventy. By one microwave popcorn was commercially available,
with General Mills snagging the first patent for the microwave
popcorn bag. The association of movies and popcorn didn't go
away once it became easier and a lot more common
to make popcorn at home. No way. If you look
at the packaging of a lot of microwave popcorns, they
might have things like filmstrips on them, or they might
(23:33):
be called movie theater popcorn, or they might advertise directly
with movies or in commercials or promotional images for things
like Netflix. The viewers and these things are often eating
popcorn as they watch whatever they're watching. Not only that,
but this relationship has changed the type of popcorn were
more likely to eat free movies. A majority of popcorn
souls came from a variety of white corn, but those
(23:55):
sneaky movie vendors liked the yellow variety because it was
bigger when popped. I mean, you got a lot more
volume for less money. And since it was yellow, customers
thought it was covered in butter. And though some were
advertising and worth more. Yeah, it reached the point where
a lot of people wouldn't buy white popcorn and stores
because they didn't think it would taste as good as
(24:16):
movie theater popcorn, and that persists to this day. Ten
percent of commercially grown popcorn is the white variety. Of
the rest is that yellow, the yellow flavor hover yellow,
it's in your brain, Oh my goodness. To this day,
popcorn and other concessions are the primary drivershop profit for
movie theaters, with an estimated profit of of total theater
(24:40):
profit all from all from the concessions, a lot of
which is popcorn. All right, so that was our popcorn history.
We do have some popcorn science for you, but first
we've got another quick break for a word from our
sponsors and we're back, Thank you sponsors. So, nutrient wise,
(25:08):
popcorn is a whole grain, and it's thirty calories perk
up for air pops and thirty five for oil popped.
But this is the home made stuff important, not the
movie theater, baseball game variety. Different. Yeah. Yeah, a word
on that in a second. But but but you know, popcorn,
being a grain, is mostly low sugar, cob or hydrates
with a little bit of fiber, plus about ten percent
(25:29):
each fats and proteins makeup wise. Those fats, by the way,
are the good fats. It's not going to fill you
up for very long, but it is certainly not the
worst thing for you. Nutritionists tend to like it because
the volume and the crunch can make it feel more
satisfying than similar snacks that have higher caloric punches. Of course,
what you do with your popcorn once it's popped does
(25:49):
make a huge difference. If you're using it mostly as
a vehicle for salt and butter, you're gonna be eating
a lot of salt and butter. Yeah. Yeah, it's not
a particularly bad thing as long as you don't have
a condition that makes it advisable to avoid salt. If
you're in good health. Salt is basically fine as long
as you remember to hydrate and um, as long as
you're using real butter, which is a high calorie food
but totally fine in moderation. M yeah, but hey, speaking
(26:13):
of real butter. Yeah, since we talked about movie theaters
and popcorn so much, we thought we should briefly talked
about the yellow sledge called in heavy quotes butter butter
offered as a popcorn topping at movie theaters. Okay, so first,
that whole health thing, this doesn't hold true for the
(26:35):
popcorn you get the movie theaters because it's usually popped
in coconut oil and then it's heavily salted and often
topped with butter. For a medium bucket of popcorn, which
holds about twenty cups, you're looking at twelve hundred calories,
sixty grams of saturated fats, and nine eight milligrams of sodium.
That's that's a bunch. Yeah. For reference, that recommended daily
(26:58):
value of saturated fats for the average adult is twenty
four grams, So a third of that or half that
I see that that that second thing that I said, right,
and that butter, it's actually a mixture of flavor call
and butter flavored topping. Yep, butter flavored topping. Slavor call
(27:18):
is a fine salt that's been colored yellow to get
popcorn the illusion of being coated with butter. The butter
flavored topping is a combination of things like beta caroteen,
soybean oil, and of course buttery flavoring. Mm hmm. It's
some type of chemical that mimics butter flavor. And it's
twenty more calories for tablespoon than real butter. Yeah, and
(27:40):
that's you know, different types of fats interact with your
body differently. Um. It's generally best to avoid anything that's
labeled as containing trans fats or partially hydrogenated oils um,
which is what this stuff is made of, instead of butter. Yeah,
because it's shelf stable. We talked about that and also
about artificial butter flavoring a little bit in our butter episodes,
(28:03):
of which there are two. We had a lot to
say about butter um. Basically, there are two compounds that
make butter taste like butter di settle and as a
to in in old fashioned cultured butter. These compounds are
excreted by a friendly lactic acid bacteria during the process
of turning cream into butter. But if you want to
(28:23):
add butter flavoring to less expensive, non cultured butter or,
in the case of movie theater butter, some kind of
vegetable oil, you've got a couple options. Um, you can
either farm a whole bunch of bacteria or yeast and
then collect that diacetal and acid to in those are
called natural butter flavorings. Or um, you can synthesize those
(28:45):
molecules or others that will create similar flavor experience, like
a subtle propianal in a lab, thus producing what's called
artificial butter flavoring. And uh, you may have heard about
artificial butter flavoring a special in microwave popcorn causing health problems.
That is a real thing, but the story kind of
(29:07):
got sensationalized in the press. Factory workers who breathe in
like a whole lot of di setle do have an
increased risk of this one particular type of lung disease.
And there was this one guy who was popping like
two to three bags per day every day for a
whole bunch of years who successfully sued a lot of
microwave popcorn producers after contracting this disease. It's called popcorn lung,
(29:29):
which sounds adorable, but it's not. And there is no
risk in in breathing in the amount that you'd a
realized from popping a bag of popcorn in your microwave.
Like every now and then, uh like, consider sticking with
the types of microwave popcorn that feature little to no flavoring.
Add whatever flavorings you want after it's popped. Also, make
(29:50):
sure your kitchen is well ventilated if you're worried about
this kind of thing. I mean, that's a good tip
all around. Like, well, vento laid kitchens are a cook's friend. Yeah, definitely.
Also concerning microwave popcorn, will it give me cancer? Oh?
I hope not. Okay, Well that's sort of my short answer. Yeah,
it's it's it's no, jeez, I hope not. Um that
(30:10):
the long answer, Oh okay. The long answer is that
for many years and one of the materials that the
food industry used and a whole lot of wrappings was
oh I did this to myself. Um. Per fluoro octane
sulfonate also known as pfos because it's so much easier
to say. P f OS is great because it prevents
oils from leaking out through paper products. It's also terrible
(30:32):
because it can leach into your food and mess with
your hormones and contribute to thyroid disease in various cancers. Yeah,
much of the food industry voluntarily started phasing out pfos
starting around in light of all of this medical research. However,
sort of similar stuff like polyfluoro alkal substances uh p
f A s S are still used and can also
(30:55):
leak into food and have been associated with some negative
health effects. Um. The f d A says that they
are safe at the levels at which they are used,
but some researchers are still calling for more work to
be done. Again, the real danger here is to folks
who work in manufacturing and get exposed to like huge
amounts of these chemicals. But if you're concerned about this, UM,
(31:18):
just pop your popcorn in the old fashioned way, not
in a microwave, but on a stovetop. That's my preferred way. Yeah,
pretty delicious that way too, And I I wrote microwave
popcorn button question question question, question, excliation point, exclation point,
excluition for and then just left Lauren to Okay, all right,
(31:43):
so you've probably seen on a microwave a microwave popcorn button. Yeah. Um.
On most microwaves, this is just a timer and like
maybe a power setting that may or may not help
you avoid burning the holy heck out of your popcorn. Um. However,
in the incredible future, your microwave might be able to
listen to your popcorn to help you out. Worldpool released
(32:07):
in microwave that could monitor the time between Colonel pops
and it would automatically shut off when that length hit
hit that length of time hit hit a certain length. Yeah.
Most most brands of my group Popcorn in the Meanwhile
recommend just doing that the old fashioned way with your ears.
Well that's always cracked me up. That on the instructions
(32:29):
of popcorn bags. It's like, do not button, what is
it for? What are you thinking? Silly you? Um? And
popcorn was I think that I can't remember his name.
It was a general who helps invent the microwave. He
used popcorn and a lot of his tests. Yeah, and
(32:50):
he I think he was the one that it's like,
there should be a popcorn button anyway. For World War two,
they were working on this. Wow, that's starting at a
very high level. That's like, yeah, you're just diving right in.
Okay real yeah, alright, so that's our science segment. Yeah,
which brings us to some random slash culture stuff like
(33:11):
popcorn balls. Popcorn balls. I have never done this, have
you done this? Lord? Um? Not first I've received a
popcorn ball as a gift from family members who made
them themselves. Okay, Well, this is a practice that started
in the nineteenth century and it was all the rage
into the early twentieth century. If you couldn't guess from
the name, it's like balls of popcorn. Yeah, yeahy're they're
(33:34):
usually um, lightly sweetened with sugar molasses of some kind
and kind of it's it's all sort of ripped into
into this sort of ball shape that sounds ball shape. Um.
The first known written recipe appeared in a eighteen sixty
one cookbook. Popcorn is a popular holiday decoration, largely due
(33:57):
to its cheapness and also its color. This was especial
true around Christmas, where it was also a fairly common gift.
From this sprung up a whole industry of popcorn ball makers.
Nearly every cookbook had at least one popcorn ball recipe
with the dawn of the New century, and Victorian families
used them as decoration. So it had like a very
(34:18):
brief but very intense yeah popularity. Yeah um. And there's
such a fun story about how the first popcorn ball
was made. This is like a truly tall tale kind
of thing. Yes, it's excellent, okay. Um. So the story
comes to us from the corn husker state of Nebraska,
where another big crop is sorghum. There was one summer
(34:40):
during the mid eighteen hundreds that was so wet and
so hot that the rain combined with the sorghum to
make a syrup that drained off to a nearby corn field.
And on that field, the heat caused the kernels to
dry out and pop, and then a tornado came through.
Oh yes, out of all of this weather chaos us,
the farmer found a one hundred foot mountain five of
(35:05):
popcorn balls. Lucky but no one other twyst grasshoppers ate
all of them, devouring the proof. Oh yeah, but the
secret of of the popcorn ball was revealed to him.
It was and some grasshoppers. Grasshoppers eat popcorn balls anyway,
(35:25):
I'm sure yeah, Billy, just about anything, right. Yeah. According
to the edition of the Guinness Book of World Records,
the largest popcorn ball ever created comes to us via
the Indiana State Fair. And this behemoth was eight feet
in diameter two point five and wade six thousand pounds.
(35:47):
Oh my goodness. Also, this was probably a duck to
everyone else, but I had no idea a Guinness Brewery
was behind the Guinness Book of World Records. And I
freaked out a little bit about it. I think any
like texted me or something or she maybe there was
an email, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it was just
like it was just the surprise face emoji, like fifteen times. Yeah,
I should have known. Um. And aside, popcorn the game
(36:11):
both classroom and trampoline, I've never heard what what what's
the popcorn game? What? Um? Popcorn in in classroom is
when um usually like if you're reading something aloud in
class um, you pop to someone so you're reading and
then you want to be done. It's popcorn, um. And
(36:32):
it was annoying because there was always that one kid
that read like one sentence and then popcorned over to you. Anyway,
and on a trampoline it's when you are like you
wrap your arms around your knees and you make yourself
into like a kernel, like a small, tiny little ball,
as much as you can, and then your friends just
try to make yours come apart and you bust open
into popcorn. That's great. Yeah, and then only slightly hazardous,
(36:55):
only slightly, so that's popcorn. That's popcorn. Man, I'm gonna
I'm gonna have to go get some popcorn. And then
I'm not upset about it at all. Yeah. No, this
is this is one of those food cravings that I
think is totally okay. Yeah, I think so. And that
(37:16):
brings us to the end of this classic. Um, I'm
curious if anybody makes popcorn balls, which came up in
a recent in our Candy Cane episode. I'd love to
hear about that. Yeah, I want to live through you.
Show me the pictures, tell me about your process. Um.
And uh, if you're seeing a bunch of movies this
this season, we hope that you got some popcorn, popcorn
(37:38):
and future. Yeah, and that you and that you enjoy them.
You enjoy both popcorn and the movies, Yes, indeed. Um,
And if you would like to contact us, you can
our email is hello at favorite pod dot com. We're
also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook at favorite pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of I Heart Radio
(37:59):
and Stuff Media. Were more podcasts from my Heart Radio.
You can visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Bacon and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
more good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Favor production of I Heart Radio
and Stuff Media. I'm Annies and I'm Lauren voc Obaum,
and today we have a classic episode for you about popcorn,
one of my all time very favorite foods. Yes, and
this is one of my all time very favorite episodes,
I think. Yeah, it was a really fun one. And
I didn't realize that popcorn played such a huge role
(00:28):
in our our movie industry here. Yeah. Yeah, because it
kind of is responsible for movies surviving, the film industry
surviving through the depression. Yes, and right now we are
in kind of a big movie season. Uh. We got
Frozen too, Star Wars is coming out. Um, but there's
(00:49):
also a lot of Oscar contenders. Yeah. And as part
of that, Lauren and I actually got to guest on
a friend of the show and one of the hosts
of Stuff you should know, Chuck co worker Chuck his
show movie Crash, and we talked about Knives. Yes. Yeah, yeah,
So so Annie and and I and our our coworker
Casey all went to a showing of Knives out together.
(01:11):
Annie had already seen it, but she was just as
excited the second time around. Um, and yeah, we got
to sit down on a panel with Chuck and just
discuss how much we heck and loved the film because
it was delight and also, I mean, it was delightful.
And also I got a giant, giant tub of popcorn. Yeah.
I was very happy about that because I didn't get
any and you were after me in the concession line,
(01:32):
and you know, I was having that I've got popcorn.
Then I turned around and Lauren, you it up. Oh yeah,
I got up sold really hard. Um. Yeah, I noticed
that you didn't get any, and I was like, all right,
thank you. You knew I wanted it deep down, and
I did. But I've been having five been seeing a
lot of movies lately and it's been fun. Um. But
(01:54):
the panel was also. Yeah. And if you if you
are a human who enjoys film culture and technical discussions
and interviews with really awesome human people, um, then yeah,
check out the movie Crush podcast. It's called movie Crush.
It's available wherever fine podcasts are found. Um and uh yeah,
(02:14):
enjoy this this classic episode about popcorn. Hello, and welcome
to food Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelba and I'm Andy Reese,
and today we're talking about popcorn. Popcorn is one of
(02:40):
Annie's very favorite things on the planet. Like she's just
sitting she's sort of vibrating right now. I know Lauren
recently gave me some popcorn and I had three bags
in it, and I ate all three bags that day,
like not even it was maybe two hour period. I
realized after I left that day that like, maybe I
shouldn't have left you with that much microwave popcorn. I
(03:02):
can't resist. I probably mentioned popcorn at least once a day.
I don't know how. Um, I love it. It's delicious.
There's a place downstairs that's really good popcorn. Oh oh yeah, yeah,
it's dangerous. I know. Every day I'm like, I could,
I could go down. They could just be there right now.
And I also recently just went into a movie theater
(03:23):
to get the popcorn and the guy was like, so well,
which he was going to direct me to. The theater
was like, oh no, this is this is all I'm
here for. I'm leaving. I just got my popcorn. That's
all that's all I wanted. Um that aside. We are
currently recording this uh in November, and in a round
this time of year, a lot of big movies come
(03:44):
out popcorn is a thing at movie theaters. It is,
and that is the thing that we will be talking about. Yeah,
that story is great. Yeah, but also if you're like me,
maybe you just eat popcorn all the time movie or
not you think about it all the time. Maybe or not.
In either case, popcorn? What is it? What is it? Well,
it's a type of corn kernel scientifically known as zamis
(04:06):
everta that when dried and then exposed to heat, pops
into this lovely cloud like thing. There are about varieties
of corn that do this, but the two that we
use the most are rice popcorn the kernels kind of
looked like rice, huh, and pearl popcorn. Guess what they
look like? Pearls. Yeah. So you've got the outside, this
hard hull, and then outer indo sperm, which surrounds the
(04:28):
starchy white inner in indo sperm with an ideal moisture
of about thirty five percent. The moisture is important because
at around two and twelve degrees fahrenheit are one hundred
degrees celsius. The moisture turns the steam until it causes
the kernel to rip apart inside out like, increasing in
size by about twenty to forty times giving you popcorn handling.
(04:50):
An exposure to air can impact the moisture content, which
is why you're advised historic kernels and an air tight container.
If the package has been opened until you're to pop them.
That's because the steam alone will not make a popcorn
kernel explode. Every successful kernel of popcorn is a tiny
pressure cooker. The hull holds in the moisture and the
(05:12):
increasing heat because you're not just heating the kernels two
waters boiling point. You take them all the way up
to a d eighty degrease celsius or three hundred and
fifty six degrees fahrenheit. I'm being precise about this because
this is the number. This is the number at which
the vast majority of popcorn Colonel's pop uh so so
pressure okay, builds up inside the kernel all the way
(05:33):
to a hundred and thirty five pounds per square inch,
which is, by the way, about twice as much pressure
as there is inside of a bottle of champagne or
semitruck tire oh champagne reference um. The pressure overwhelms the
structural integrity of the hull, and the whole thing bursts.
If you mess with the whole you'll wind up with
the dad. You don't want a dad. You don't want
(05:54):
to dad. But why does the kernel go off luffy?
The trapped steam basically gelatinizes the content of the kernel,
so when the whole bursts and the contents spill out,
air is forced into that matrix of proteins and starches,
creating a foam that rapidly cools into that solid fluff.
(06:14):
And timing is key here. Heating popcorn too quickly doesn't
give the insides time to gelatinize, but heating it too
slowly will make the tip of the kernel soft, allowing
steam to leak out instead of building up. The distinctive
noise that popcorn makes when it pops was only figured
out for certain in when researchers out of France used
high speed imaging and audio recordings to take a closer
(06:36):
look at popcorn. Uh. It's the noise of water vapor
escaping rapidly, amplified by the cavity that it's leaving inside
the kernel. They also found that the colonels jump when
they pop because the first like leg of expanding starch
that escapes from the hull uh and and hits the
pan or the bag will first compress from the change
(06:56):
in pressure and then expand rapidly, and this action work
like a springer or like like your leg, vaulting the
kernel into the air. The researchers developed this imaging equipment
not to study popcorn, but rather to study the physical
dynamics of living plants, like how trees break during storms.
They bent it towards popcorn to give physics teachers a
(07:17):
fun way to demonstrate difficult principles to their students. They
told the l A Times, this literally gives an appetite
for science. That's excellent. M and it is a very
popular snack food at the movies, like we mentioned, but
also more generally. When I was in threw it was
served before a lot of my meals. It's kind of
like you know, your chips. They had popcorn, and people
(07:39):
purchased one billion, one million, two sixty two thousand pounds
of popcorn. And Americans eat about thirteen billion quarts a year,
which comes out to forty two quarts of persons. I
bet a lot of that's most of the world's popcorn
has grown in the American Midwest, and the best time
for sales is in the fall. It's the official state
(08:02):
snack of Illinois State snacks. Still don't understand it. You've
got a lot to learn, Lauren. The popcorn industry comes
with its own set of fun terminology. Oh yeah, the
kernel is called the flake. Popability refers to the percent
amount of popped kernels. The two basic popcorn shapes are
butterfly and mushroom. Mushroom is a sturdier and more often
(08:25):
used in candy wild Butterfly is bigger and more pleasing
to the eye. So when you get straight up popcorn,
it's probably butterfly. Un pop popcorn are called spinsters, but
they should be called Bachelorett's right, and a quality popcorn
should yield less than two percent of those And who
could forget the bridesmaids are the kernels that partially pop Well,
(08:48):
I didn't know that we were going to run into
such like weirdly gendered. I know, terminology and the popcorn episode.
It's everywhere we can make we can make everything weird.
That's great, And hey, that's a great transition to go
to a break for a word from one of our
lovely and not weird sponsors. And we're back, Thank you sponsor. Okay,
(09:20):
so here's where we get into the history of popcorn,
which is not going to be a history of corn
too much, way too much. Well, come back on a
later date, all right. The type of maze that gives
us popcorn was domesticated around five thousand BC in Central
and South America. Researchers think that all early corns might
(09:44):
have been popcorn. Non popping varieties would really only be
developed later through cultivation. And it wasn't that folks didn't
like popcorn and we're trying to cultivate away from it.
It's it's just that popcorn is generally inedible when it's
raw due to the thickness and hardness of the hull,
so you'd have to either end it into a flower
or pop it in order to make some use out
of it. Ancient corn cobs found on Pru's northern coast
(10:06):
suggests that people have been eating popcorn for over six thousand,
seven hundred years. They most likely would wrap the corn
and place it on coals or roasted in a fire,
and it wasn't something they would have enjoyed frequently. Right.
That evidence seems to say that it was either a
delicacy or just an occasional addition. To the diet. Colonels
(10:28):
and popcorn discovered by Herbert Dick and Earl Smith in
in a cave called the Bat Cave in New Mexico.
Wait that bat cave? Are we sure? Yeah? Not that
bat cave? Wow? Still probably pretty interesting place. Oh yeah.
The kernels and popcorn discovered there were carbondated to five thousand,
(10:50):
six d years old. The colonels were in such good
condition they could still pop. They didn't pop them, they
studied them, but they could have popped them. Oh man, Yeah.
Circup three hundred CE Mexico. Funeral urns with images of
Amaze God show him sporting a headdress decorated with popcorn.
Signs of popcorn pop up all over Central and South
(11:14):
America over the next centuries, especially prevalent in Mexico, Peru,
and Guatemala. The web blow and Iroquois for sure consumed popcorn.
French explorers wrote that the Iroquois placed colonels and pots
filled with hot sand to pop them. I love all
these like innovation ways to find pop popcorn. According to
(11:37):
a couple of historians, some Native American tribes believed each
popcorn kernel housed peaceful spirits. Well, they were peaceful until
you started heating out their house, which made them shake
the kernels with increasing anger, until pop they bust out,
leaving a cloud of steam in their week. And I
think I read somewhere I don't believe this is true,
but I read that, like when you say someone steaming
(11:57):
with anger, that's what it's about. Um. And that brings
us to the early sixteenth century when popcorn was a
particular significance to the Aztecs. Talking about the Aztecs again,
Apart from snacking on it, they use popcorn as a decoration,
as embellishments for ceremonies, ornamental decoration on statues of their gods.
Bernardino de Sahagoon wrote in his observations of popcorn's importance
(12:21):
to the Aztecs. Quote and also a number of young
women danced, having so vowed a popcorn dance. As thick
as tassels of maize were their popcorn garlands. Yeah, popcorn dance.
Another written account by a Spanish observer of an Aztec
ceremony described it thusly. They scattered before him parched corn
called mono kittle, kind of corn which burst when parched
(12:44):
and discloses its contents, and makes itself look like a
very white flower. They said these were hailstones given to
the god of water yep. And there was even a
word in the Aztec language for the sound of several
colonels popping at the same time, Toto PoCA, speaking of
the Spanish. After Cortez invaded the Aztec Empire in fifteen nineteen,
(13:04):
one of the spoils he spread around the world was popcorn,
and slowly people started to figure out how it worked.
Felix de Zara encountered popcorn during his exploration of Paraguay,
writing world and fat are oil. The grains burst without
becoming detached, and their results a super bouquet fit to
adorn a lady's hair at night without anyone knowing what
(13:25):
it was. I've often eaten these burst greens and found
them very good. Well wow, what words of praise. As
colonists arrived to the New World, the Native Americans introduced
them to popcorn, a snack they adopted as their own.
The colonist and also sometimes added milk and sugar too
as a sort of popcorn cereal yeah first first air
popped breakfast cereal yeah. And also also sometimes they would
(13:50):
pop it with some molasses to make something kind of
like today's kettle corn. And guess who enjoyed the whole
popcorn as a cereal. Years later, one John Harvey Kellogg, Yes,
that killer. He approved of something he did heck and
his wife Ella, She called it an excellent food. And
(14:11):
John lauded popcorn as quote easily digestible and to the
highest degree wholesome, presenting the grain in its entirety, and
hints superior to many d natured breakfast foods which are
found in the market. Yeah, well, there you go, Kellogg,
always popping up. I didn't even mean to do it, Okay.
(14:32):
By the eighteen twenties, popcorn colonels being sold under the
names pearl or non par yell. Never know how to
pronounce that, for sure, but it's the same word used
for sprinkles in the Eastern US, and John Russell Bartlett
included popcorn and his Dictionary of Americanisms. Despite being a
popular snack in the colonies, they found it not only tasty,
(14:53):
but entertaining. You had to get your entertainment somehow. In
the nineteenth century, people didn't really have a great way
to pop popcorn. They tried all kinds of things, though,
including throwing kernels and hot ash into kettles of hot
lard or butter, or into these wire boxes attached to
a long wooden handle, and then you'd stick them over
a fire. That was the most popular way. Enter Charles
(15:16):
Creeturs of Chicago's Seas, of Chicago's Sea, Creeters and Company,
that's a lot of seas and creatres showed up to
Chicago's World Columbian Exposition with general Please, I don't know
if you could hear that, but it was there a
mobile popcorn machine. Scientific American described it like this. The apparatus,
(15:37):
which is light and strong and weighing but four hundred
or five hundred pounds, can be drawn readily by a
boy or by a small pony to any picnic ground, fair,
political rally, et cetera, and too many other places where
a good business could be done for a day or two.
Creeters was the owner of a candy store, and he
got the idea for the mobile popcorn machine after working
(15:58):
on improving his peanut roasting machine. Seen both were powered
by steam and by He brought horse drawn popcorn wagons
to the scene. Uh and cracker jacks. Cracker jacks such
as for those of you don't know, it's the snack. Um.
It's a mix of molasses covered popcorn and peanuts. It
debuted in the eighteen nineties. Um. That name, by the way,
(16:20):
probably comes from the popular sling at the time meaning
first rate or excellent cracker jack, cracker Jack. Yeah. And
the song take me out to the ballgame with the
line buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks came out
in nineteen eight and we still sing this at baseball
games in the US. Yeah, yeah, what do you sing
in baseball games in other countries? Let us know exactly
we had that thought as as as I was saying.
(16:41):
The American Popcorn Company was founded by Cloyd Smith and
Sioux City, Iowa, in nineteen fourteen, and they released America's
first popcorn brand, jolly Time, Jolly Time, Jolly Time. They
started selling it in cans with the ambitious slogan guaranteed
to pop. Oh yeah, that's not what it was at
the time. Really, No, it really wasn't. Due to its
(17:04):
low price, relative abundance, and ease of preparation, popcorn experienced
bumps during times of hardship like the Great Depression and
World War Two. In fact, it was one of the
few businesses that thrived during the Great Depression, with stories
like this one. One Oklahoma banker, newly out of a
job after his bank closed shop, bought a popcorn machine
(17:24):
and started selling it outside of a theater, and from
that alone, he made enough money to buy back three
farms he'd lost in two years. That's kind of stunning. Yeah,
and this all ties into how popcorn became like the
ultimate movie theater snack, right, So how did that happen? Well?
At first, movie theaters really turned up their noses at
(17:46):
the idea. They were not excited about it. They didn't
want people getting popcorn all over their beautiful auditoriums. They
wanted it to be a place for the elite, attracting
all those rich movie goers, and they didn't want the
loud and munching a popcorn are the unsightly trash it
would generate, impating that. In seven though, the talkies or
(18:08):
movies with sound, start grazing theater screens, which meant a
wider audience since viewers no longer needed to be literate
to enjoy a film, and by nineteen thirty ninety million
people a week, we're going to the movies. Theater owners
were thinking of ways to capitalize on this, and with
the introduction of sound, selling snacks didn't sound like such
a terrible idea anymore, but still the potential from mess
(18:28):
really concerned them. Sometimes hawkers would go around the theater
owners walk govern down the aisles selling popcorn. However, the
Great Depression changed that people could still afford to go
to the movies, and they could also afford a five
to ten cent bag of popcorn, you know, one of
those small luxuries like like lips write something exactly um.
(18:49):
For the theater owners, they could get years of popcorn
from a ten dollar bag of kernels. Street vendors with
their own popcorn carts camped outside of theaters to sell bags.
Patron went in. This is one of my favorite facts
of the episode. This practice was so rampant. Movie theaters
had signs that requested movie goers check their popcorn with
their coade. What check your popcorn? Check your popcorn if
(19:12):
there was a sign up. Now, like, there's been times
where I like popcorn in my first I gotta check
my popcorn. Um. At the time, most movie theaters didn't
have the ventilation to house popcorn machines, but they couldn't
ignore the siren's call of popcorn profits as more and
more of their customers walked in with bags of the stuff,
(19:32):
so they leased what they called lobby privileges to vendors,
charging them a daily fee to sell popcorn in the lobby.
This arrangement saved a good chunk of theaters from going
underder them during the Great Depression. That didn't stop theater
owners for looking for ways to get rid of the
vendors and making their own popcorn and massively increasing their profits.
(19:53):
One example of how lucrative the popcorn business could be
in theaters. Dallas Movie Theater Chain invested in popcorn machines
for eighty of their theaters, but in five movie houses
they considered their best, they abstained, believing it would tarnish
their fancy pants reputation. The ones without the popcorn machines
almost went under in the next two years, while those
(20:13):
theaters with the popcorn machines saw their profits shoot way up.
Movie theaters realized this popcorn thing and snacks in general,
or where the money was. It's so so popcorn basically
like made the movie industry possible. Yeah, it's they're so
tied together. This growth couldn't be sustained, however, and theater
(20:34):
saw steady decrease in profits in the fifties and sixties.
And what was to blame the television. More and more
Americans were staying at home and watching the mood Tube
in the comfort of their own home, at their home,
in their home. Uh. And they were doing this rather
than going out to the movies. And this meant trouble
for popcorn too, because it wasn't easy to make it
(20:56):
at home. Yes, in you three easy pop appeared in
our grocery store shelves. All you had to do was
placed the covered aluminum pie plate looking thing over heat
source for one minute, the aluminum foil covering would kind
of balloon one out popcorn. A little later they changed
their name to one you might recognize, Jiffy Pop. And
(21:19):
this always makes me think of the movie screen. Oh, yeah,
that that opening, that opening scene. Yeah, poor Drew Barrymore,
Poor Drew Barrymore. Oh. I wanted to put in here
one of the notes that I found while I was
researching um food. Timeline dot Org has this clip from
a nineteen sixty two issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune
which describes a package of of this one brand of
popcorn TV time that included a feedbag for kids to wear.
(21:45):
It was like a plastic apron with this big pocket
across the front. So I guess you could carry your
popcorn around with you. I mean I would, The writer
was suggesting a second use for the apron is like
a trick or treating excess three feedbag for you know.
It sounds um lovely and I'm sure you you were
(22:06):
the coolest kid on the street if you went chicken treating.
Oh yeah, but you've got your popcorn in one pocket
candy in the other. I mean, clearly you have to
organize these. Oh yeah, yeah, you've got to. But that's
a good. That's a good, you know, you know, keep
keep yourself sustained for the entire trick or training. But
I'm sure you could laugh a lot longer. Yeah. Meanwhile,
(22:26):
farmers and food scientists were busy working on growing the
least wasteful, best popping popcorn possible. The first commercial popcorn
hybrid was released in nineteen thirty four, and the U.
S d A's Bureau of Plant Industry got pretty heavily
involved to help out. Between the nineteen fifties and today,
agricultural research would reduce the rate of unpopped kernels by
(22:49):
s wow. By the nineteen seventies, more and more American
households owned a microwave, and as you might guess, this
is a big deal for in home popcorn make and eating.
Orville Redd and Bocker. That Redden Bocker. Yep, that Redden Bocker. Uh.
This is a family of farmers that survived through the
Great Depression thanks to popcorn. They released their namesake popcorn
(23:12):
in nineteen seventy. By one microwave popcorn was commercially available,
with General Mills snagging the first patent for the microwave
popcorn bag. The association of movies and popcorn didn't go
away once it became easier and a lot more common
to make popcorn at home. No way. If you look
at the packaging of a lot of microwave popcorns, they
might have things like filmstrips on them, or they might
(23:33):
be called movie theater popcorn, or they might advertise directly
with movies or in commercials or promotional images for things
like Netflix. The viewers and these things are often eating
popcorn as they watch whatever they're watching. Not only that,
but this relationship has changed the type of popcorn were
more likely to eat free movies. A majority of popcorn
souls came from a variety of white corn, but those
(23:55):
sneaky movie vendors liked the yellow variety because it was
bigger when popped. I mean, you got a lot more
volume for less money. And since it was yellow, customers
thought it was covered in butter. And though some were
advertising and worth more. Yeah, it reached the point where
a lot of people wouldn't buy white popcorn and stores
because they didn't think it would taste as good as
(24:16):
movie theater popcorn, and that persists to this day. Ten
percent of commercially grown popcorn is the white variety. Of
the rest is that yellow, the yellow flavor hover yellow,
it's in your brain, Oh my goodness. To this day,
popcorn and other concessions are the primary drivershop profit for
movie theaters, with an estimated profit of of total theater
(24:40):
profit all from all from the concessions, a lot of
which is popcorn. All right, so that was our popcorn history.
We do have some popcorn science for you, but first
we've got another quick break for a word from our
sponsors and we're back, Thank you sponsors. So, nutrient wise,
(25:08):
popcorn is a whole grain, and it's thirty calories perk
up for air pops and thirty five for oil popped.
But this is the home made stuff important, not the
movie theater, baseball game variety. Different. Yeah. Yeah, a word
on that in a second. But but but you know, popcorn,
being a grain, is mostly low sugar, cob or hydrates
with a little bit of fiber, plus about ten percent
(25:29):
each fats and proteins makeup wise. Those fats, by the way,
are the good fats. It's not going to fill you
up for very long, but it is certainly not the
worst thing for you. Nutritionists tend to like it because
the volume and the crunch can make it feel more
satisfying than similar snacks that have higher caloric punches. Of course,
what you do with your popcorn once it's popped does
(25:49):
make a huge difference. If you're using it mostly as
a vehicle for salt and butter, you're gonna be eating
a lot of salt and butter. Yeah. Yeah, it's not
a particularly bad thing as long as you don't have
a condition that makes it advisable to avoid salt. If
you're in good health. Salt is basically fine as long
as you remember to hydrate and um, as long as
you're using real butter, which is a high calorie food
but totally fine in moderation. M yeah, but hey, speaking
(26:13):
of real butter. Yeah, since we talked about movie theaters
and popcorn so much, we thought we should briefly talked
about the yellow sledge called in heavy quotes butter butter
offered as a popcorn topping at movie theaters. Okay, so first,
that whole health thing, this doesn't hold true for the
(26:35):
popcorn you get the movie theaters because it's usually popped
in coconut oil and then it's heavily salted and often
topped with butter. For a medium bucket of popcorn, which
holds about twenty cups, you're looking at twelve hundred calories,
sixty grams of saturated fats, and nine eight milligrams of sodium.
That's that's a bunch. Yeah. For reference, that recommended daily
(26:58):
value of saturated fats for the average adult is twenty
four grams, So a third of that or half that
I see that that that second thing that I said, right,
and that butter, it's actually a mixture of flavor call
and butter flavored topping. Yep, butter flavored topping. Slavor call
(27:18):
is a fine salt that's been colored yellow to get
popcorn the illusion of being coated with butter. The butter
flavored topping is a combination of things like beta caroteen,
soybean oil, and of course buttery flavoring. Mm hmm. It's
some type of chemical that mimics butter flavor. And it's
twenty more calories for tablespoon than real butter. Yeah, and
(27:40):
that's you know, different types of fats interact with your
body differently. Um. It's generally best to avoid anything that's
labeled as containing trans fats or partially hydrogenated oils um,
which is what this stuff is made of, instead of butter. Yeah,
because it's shelf stable. We talked about that and also
about artificial butter flavoring a little bit in our butter episodes,
(28:03):
of which there are two. We had a lot to
say about butter um. Basically, there are two compounds that
make butter taste like butter di settle and as a
to in in old fashioned cultured butter. These compounds are
excreted by a friendly lactic acid bacteria during the process
of turning cream into butter. But if you want to
(28:23):
add butter flavoring to less expensive, non cultured butter or,
in the case of movie theater butter, some kind of
vegetable oil, you've got a couple options. Um, you can
either farm a whole bunch of bacteria or yeast and
then collect that diacetal and acid to in those are
called natural butter flavorings. Or um, you can synthesize those
(28:45):
molecules or others that will create similar flavor experience, like
a subtle propianal in a lab, thus producing what's called
artificial butter flavoring. And uh, you may have heard about
artificial butter flavoring a special in microwave popcorn causing health problems.
That is a real thing, but the story kind of
(29:07):
got sensationalized in the press. Factory workers who breathe in
like a whole lot of di setle do have an
increased risk of this one particular type of lung disease.
And there was this one guy who was popping like
two to three bags per day every day for a
whole bunch of years who successfully sued a lot of
microwave popcorn producers after contracting this disease. It's called popcorn lung,
(29:29):
which sounds adorable, but it's not. And there is no
risk in in breathing in the amount that you'd a
realized from popping a bag of popcorn in your microwave.
Like every now and then, uh like, consider sticking with
the types of microwave popcorn that feature little to no flavoring.
Add whatever flavorings you want after it's popped. Also, make
(29:50):
sure your kitchen is well ventilated if you're worried about
this kind of thing. I mean, that's a good tip
all around. Like, well, vento laid kitchens are a cook's friend. Yeah, definitely.
Also concerning microwave popcorn, will it give me cancer? Oh?
I hope not. Okay, Well that's sort of my short answer. Yeah,
it's it's it's no, jeez, I hope not. Um that
(30:10):
the long answer, Oh okay. The long answer is that
for many years and one of the materials that the
food industry used and a whole lot of wrappings was
oh I did this to myself. Um. Per fluoro octane
sulfonate also known as pfos because it's so much easier
to say. P f OS is great because it prevents
oils from leaking out through paper products. It's also terrible
(30:32):
because it can leach into your food and mess with
your hormones and contribute to thyroid disease in various cancers. Yeah,
much of the food industry voluntarily started phasing out pfos
starting around in light of all of this medical research. However,
sort of similar stuff like polyfluoro alkal substances uh p
f A s S are still used and can also
(30:55):
leak into food and have been associated with some negative
health effects. Um. The f d A says that they
are safe at the levels at which they are used,
but some researchers are still calling for more work to
be done. Again, the real danger here is to folks
who work in manufacturing and get exposed to like huge
amounts of these chemicals. But if you're concerned about this, UM,
(31:18):
just pop your popcorn in the old fashioned way, not
in a microwave, but on a stovetop. That's my preferred way. Yeah,
pretty delicious that way too, And I I wrote microwave
popcorn button question question question, question, excliation point, exclation point,
excluition for and then just left Lauren to Okay, all right,
(31:43):
so you've probably seen on a microwave a microwave popcorn button. Yeah. Um.
On most microwaves, this is just a timer and like
maybe a power setting that may or may not help
you avoid burning the holy heck out of your popcorn. Um. However,
in the incredible future, your microwave might be able to
listen to your popcorn to help you out. Worldpool released
(32:07):
in microwave that could monitor the time between Colonel pops
and it would automatically shut off when that length hit
hit that length of time hit hit a certain length. Yeah.
Most most brands of my group Popcorn in the Meanwhile
recommend just doing that the old fashioned way with your ears.
Well that's always cracked me up. That on the instructions
(32:29):
of popcorn bags. It's like, do not button, what is
it for? What are you thinking? Silly you? Um? And
popcorn was I think that I can't remember his name.
It was a general who helps invent the microwave. He
used popcorn and a lot of his tests. Yeah, and
(32:50):
he I think he was the one that it's like,
there should be a popcorn button anyway. For World War two,
they were working on this. Wow, that's starting at a
very high level. That's like, yeah, you're just diving right in.
Okay real yeah, alright, so that's our science segment. Yeah,
which brings us to some random slash culture stuff like
(33:11):
popcorn balls. Popcorn balls. I have never done this, have
you done this? Lord? Um? Not first I've received a
popcorn ball as a gift from family members who made
them themselves. Okay, Well, this is a practice that started
in the nineteenth century and it was all the rage
into the early twentieth century. If you couldn't guess from
the name, it's like balls of popcorn. Yeah, yeahy're they're
(33:34):
usually um, lightly sweetened with sugar molasses of some kind
and kind of it's it's all sort of ripped into
into this sort of ball shape that sounds ball shape. Um.
The first known written recipe appeared in a eighteen sixty
one cookbook. Popcorn is a popular holiday decoration, largely due
(33:57):
to its cheapness and also its color. This was especial
true around Christmas, where it was also a fairly common gift.
From this sprung up a whole industry of popcorn ball makers.
Nearly every cookbook had at least one popcorn ball recipe
with the dawn of the New century, and Victorian families
used them as decoration. So it had like a very
(34:18):
brief but very intense yeah popularity. Yeah um. And there's
such a fun story about how the first popcorn ball
was made. This is like a truly tall tale kind
of thing. Yes, it's excellent, okay. Um. So the story
comes to us from the corn husker state of Nebraska,
where another big crop is sorghum. There was one summer
(34:40):
during the mid eighteen hundreds that was so wet and
so hot that the rain combined with the sorghum to
make a syrup that drained off to a nearby corn field.
And on that field, the heat caused the kernels to
dry out and pop, and then a tornado came through.
Oh yes, out of all of this weather chaos us,
the farmer found a one hundred foot mountain five of
(35:05):
popcorn balls. Lucky but no one other twyst grasshoppers ate
all of them, devouring the proof. Oh yeah, but the
secret of of the popcorn ball was revealed to him.
It was and some grasshoppers. Grasshoppers eat popcorn balls anyway,
(35:25):
I'm sure yeah, Billy, just about anything, right. Yeah. According
to the edition of the Guinness Book of World Records,
the largest popcorn ball ever created comes to us via
the Indiana State Fair. And this behemoth was eight feet
in diameter two point five and wade six thousand pounds.
(35:47):
Oh my goodness. Also, this was probably a duck to
everyone else, but I had no idea a Guinness Brewery
was behind the Guinness Book of World Records. And I
freaked out a little bit about it. I think any
like texted me or something or she maybe there was
an email, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it was just
like it was just the surprise face emoji, like fifteen times. Yeah,
I should have known. Um. And aside, popcorn the game
(36:11):
both classroom and trampoline, I've never heard what what what's
the popcorn game? What? Um? Popcorn in in classroom is
when um usually like if you're reading something aloud in
class um, you pop to someone so you're reading and
then you want to be done. It's popcorn, um. And
(36:32):
it was annoying because there was always that one kid
that read like one sentence and then popcorned over to you. Anyway,
and on a trampoline it's when you are like you
wrap your arms around your knees and you make yourself
into like a kernel, like a small, tiny little ball,
as much as you can, and then your friends just
try to make yours come apart and you bust open
into popcorn. That's great. Yeah, and then only slightly hazardous,
(36:55):
only slightly, so that's popcorn. That's popcorn. Man, I'm gonna
I'm gonna have to go get some popcorn. And then
I'm not upset about it at all. Yeah. No, this
is this is one of those food cravings that I
think is totally okay. Yeah, I think so. And that
(37:16):
brings us to the end of this classic. Um, I'm
curious if anybody makes popcorn balls, which came up in
a recent in our Candy Cane episode. I'd love to
hear about that. Yeah, I want to live through you.
Show me the pictures, tell me about your process. Um.
And uh, if you're seeing a bunch of movies this
this season, we hope that you got some popcorn, popcorn
(37:38):
and future. Yeah, and that you and that you enjoy them.
You enjoy both popcorn and the movies, Yes, indeed. Um,
And if you would like to contact us, you can
our email is hello at favorite pod dot com. We're
also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook at favorite pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of I Heart Radio
(37:59):
and Stuff Media. Were more podcasts from my Heart Radio.
You can visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Bacon and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
more good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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