60 Fun Facts About Popcorn

What is the scientific name of the corn variety that pops?

Popcorn is Zea mays everta, technically a type of flint corn; the other names belong to dent corn (indentata), sweet corn (saccharata) and flour corn (amylacea).

Popcorn is one of how many major types of corn?

Six major types are recognised: dent, flint, flour, sweet, pod and popcorn. Dent corn fills American silos; sweet corn is what you eat off the cob.

What moisture level, by weight, makes kernels expand the most?

About 14 to 15 percent moisture by weight gives the best expansion; freshly harvested corn is too wet and pops chewy, while over-dried kernels simply refuse to burst.

Roughly what internal pressure does a kernel reach just before its hull ruptures?

The hull holds steam to about 135 psi before it ruptures, more than quadruple the pressure in a car tire, all behind a shell a fraction of a millimeter thick.

At roughly what temperature does a kernel pop?

A kernel pops at about 356°F (180°C), when the water inside has flashed to high-pressure steam that bursts the hull and puffs the starch.

By what factor does a kernel expand when it pops?

A kernel expands 20 to 50 times its original volume; the starch turns inside out as the steam flashes off, then sets into the familiar white foam.

The oldest evidence of popped corn, dated to about 4,700 BCE, was found in which country?

The cobs came from the Paredones and Huaca Prieta sites on the northern coast of Peru, where corn was popped and ground some 6,700 years ago.

In which US state is the 'Bat Cave' where 1948 excavations found ears of popcorn dated to about 3600 BCE?

Bat Cave lies in Catron County, New Mexico; its rock shelters held some of the oldest corn ever found north of Mexico.

Which grandson of Orville Redenbacher appeared beside him in the brand's commercials?

Gary Redenbacher, Orville's grandson, shared the screen with him in the brand's commercials from the 1980s.

What kind of business did Cretors run before he built his popcorn machine?

A candy store in Decatur was Cretors' business before he moved to Chicago; he had built steam machines for roasting peanuts and simply pointed the technology at corn.

At which event did Cretors introduce his popcorn machine to the public in 1893?

Cretors showed his machine at The Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, the same fair that gave the world the Ferris wheel.

How did street vendors pop corn before steam machines existed?

Holding a wire basket over an open flame was the old street method; the result was smoky, unevenly popped and easily burned, which is why an oil-and-steam machine caught on so fast.

Cretors' machine popped corn in a mixture of salt, lard and what?

Clarified butter made up one-third of Cretors' popping mix, with two-thirds lard and salt, a blend that could take 450°F without much smoke.

Under what name did Louis Rueckheim sell a tweaked version of his brother's 1893 caramel corn from 1896?

Cracker Jack got its name in 1896, supposedly when a taster exclaimed 'That's a crackerjack!', slang for something excellent; the name was trademarked that year.

In which year did prizes start appearing in every box of the Rueckheims' caramel corn?

Prizes went into every box starting in 1912; Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo joined the packaging around 1916 and were trademarked in 1919.

Which company bought the Rueckheim brothers' caramel-corn brand from Borden in 1997?

Frito-Lay, a PepsiCo subsidiary, bought the brand from Borden in 1997 and replaced the paper prizes with QR codes in 2016, to loud complaints.

During the Great Depression, roughly how much did a bag of popcorn cost?

At 5 to 10 cents a bag, popcorn was one of the few treats families could afford, and the popcorn trade thrived while other farm businesses failed.

During World War II, sugar rationing cut candy production. What happened to American popcorn consumption?

With sweets scarce, salted popcorn became the default snack of the home front.

Why did many early movie-theater owners dislike popcorn?

They thought it distracted from the films and dirtied their carpets; vendors sold it on the sidewalk outside until theaters realised how much money they were missing.

Theater owner Glen Dickinson Sr. put popcorn machines in his lobbies in 1938, then bought what?

Farms that grew the corn were Dickinson's next purchase; popcorn was making more money than the tickets, so he took over his own supply chain.

What new technology of the 1940s caused popcorn consumption to fall?

Television kept people home and out of cinemas in the late 1940s and early 1950s; the Popcorn Institute responded by promoting popcorn as a snack to eat at home in front of the set.

In which year was the Orville Redenbacher's brand launched?

The brand launched in 1970, when Redenbacher was already in his sixties; he had spent decades breeding hybrids before an ad agency put his name and face on the jar.

Orville Redenbacher earned his degree in agronomy from which university?

Redenbacher earned his agronomy degree at Purdue, in his native state, and the town of Valparaiso there holds a popcorn festival in his honor.

Before an ad agency renamed it, what did Redenbacher and partner Charles Bowman call their prized hybrid?

The agency told them nobody would remember RedBow, but that Orville's own odd name was unforgettable.

To which company did Redenbacher and Bowman sell their popcorn business in 1976?

They sold to Hunt-Wesson in 1976; Redenbacher stayed on as spokesman in his horn-rimmed glasses and bow tie until his death in 1995.

How did Orville Redenbacher die in 1995?

He had a heart attack and drowned in his hot tub at his Coronado, California condominium, aged 88; a bronze statue of him sits on a bench in Valparaiso.

Which company received the first patent for a microwave popcorn bag, in 1981?

General Mills received the first microwave popcorn bag patent in 1981; the bag's heat-concentrating film lets the oil and flavor coating get hot fast.

What is the metallized film in a microwave popcorn bag that concentrates heat called?

A susceptor, typically a thin layer of metallized film, absorbs microwaves and heats the oil slick at the bottom before the bag itself scorches.

Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer discovered microwave cooking when what melted in his pocket?

A candy bar melting in his pocket while he stood near an active magnetron in 1945 tipped Spencer off, and he started experimenting with food.

Which food did Percy Spencer test with microwaves right after popcorn?

A raw egg was next: it exploded in a colleague's face, and Raytheon filed its oven patent on October 8, 1945.

The first affordable countertop Radarange microwave went on sale in 1967 at what price?

Amana's countertop Radarange sold for $495 in 1967; the earlier commercial Radaranges of the late 1940s had been refrigerator-sized and cost thousands of dollars.

Which state has two towns claiming to be the 'Popcorn Capital of the World'?

Valparaiso and Van Buren, both in Indiana, claim the title, alongside Ridgway, Schaller, Marion and North Loup.

Popcorn became the official state snack of which state, thanks to an elementary-school project?

Illinois named popcorn its official state snack in 2003 after second- and third-graders in Joliet lobbied the legislature.

What does the popcorn industry call kernels that fail to pop?

Old maids, also called spinsters, usually fail for lack of moisture, since it is steam from water inside the kernel that bursts the hull.

Which flake shape is preferred for caramel corn because it is sturdier?

Mushroom flakes are compact balls that survive coating, so they go into caramel corn; butterfly flakes have wings and a better mouthfeel, so theaters prefer them.

Popcorn kernels are classed by shape as 'rice' or which other type?

Pearl kernels are rounded at the top and were traditionally yellow; rice kernels are long and pointed at both ends and were usually white.

If you pop red, blue or black kernels, what color is the popped corn?

Off-yellow or white, like any other popcorn, is what you get, because only the hull carries the pigment, which ends up as tiny colored flecks on the white starch.

Which aroma compound gives popcorn, basmati rice and fresh bread much of their smell?

2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, also found in pandan leaves, is the key; its partner 6-acetyl-2,3,4,5-tetrahydropyridine adds to the roasted note, and together they carry across a whole theater.

How many calories are in 100 grams of plain air-popped popcorn?

Plain air-popped popcorn has 382 calories per 100 grams; it is about 78 percent carbohydrate, including 15 percent dietary fiber, and counts as a whole grain.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says popcorn should not be served to children under what age?

Four is the AAP's cutoff: hull fragments and half-popped kernels are a choking hazard, putting popcorn alongside grapes and hot dogs on the same list.

'Popcorn lung' is a respiratory illness linked to which artificial-butter flavoring chemical?

Diacetyl, the buttery flavoring blamed for bronchiolitis obliterans in factory workers, was dropped by Orville Redenbacher's, Act II, Pop Secret and Jolly Time in 2007; it later turned up in some vape liquids.

In which country is popcorn traditionally eaten sweet, with caramelized sugar, rather than salted?

Germany is the classic case: German cinema popcorn is sugary by default, and salted is the special request.

How did 19th-century Americans commonly eat popcorn at breakfast?

With milk and sweetener, popcorn served as a breakfast cereal in the 1800s, predating flaked cereals; the Kellogg brothers came along decades later.

Popcorn balls, hugely popular around 1900, survive today as a traditional treat for which holiday?

Halloween kept the popcorn ball alive; held together with a sugary 'glue' of syrup or molasses, they faded from trick-or-treat bags after the tampering scares of the 1970s.

The term 'popped corn' first appeared in print in which 1848 reference work?

Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms, compiled by John Russell Bartlett, catalogued words peculiar to American English, from 'caucus' to 'popped corn'.

Some shipping companies have tested popcorn as a biodegradable substitute for what?

Polystyrene packing peanuts are the target; popcorn cushions just as well and biodegrades, but it attracts rodents and goes stale, so starch-based peanuts became the mainstream alternative.

Which company took over Jiffy Pop, the stovetop popcorn in an expanding foil pan, in 2000?

Jiffy Pop, developed in 1958 by Frederick C. Mennen of LaPorte, passed to Conagra Brands with its 2000 purchase of International Home Foods; its slogan called it 'as much fun to make as it is to eat'.

Kettle corn was introduced to America in the 18th century by whom?

Dutch settlers in Pennsylvania recorded kettle corn in their 18th-century diaries; the sweet-and-salty style faded in the 20th century, then came roaring back at craft fairs and living-history events.

A 'popcorn ceiling' gets its bumpy texture from tiny particles of polystyrene or what mineral?

Vermiculite or polystyrene particles give the texture; formulations before the late 1970s often contained white asbestos, which is why removing one is a job for professionals.

What is the starchy interior of a popcorn kernel, which puffs into the flake, called?

The endosperm is the starchy interior; when water inside flashes to steam, it gelatinizes, bursts through the hull and sets into the familiar white foam.

On what date is National Popcorn Day celebrated?

National Popcorn Day falls on January 19; October is separately promoted as National Popcorn Poppin' Month, timed to the harvest.

What was the value of US popcorn exports in 2022?

Popcorn is one of the few snack crops the US ships abroad in bulk, much of it to Mexico and Europe.

What oil do movie theaters commonly use to pop their corn?

Coconut oil, high in saturated fat, is the theater standard; that, plus the topping, is why a large bucket can carry a full day's saturated fat and sodium.

What happens if kernels are heated too quickly?

The hull ruptures before the starch in the center has gelatinized, leaving partly popped kernels with hard centers; heat too slowly and the tip where the kernel joined the cob leaks steam, so nothing pops.

What small mechanical figure helped merchandise Charles Cretors' early steam-powered machines?

A clown, the Tosty Rosty Man, cranked away on Cretors' machines as a built-in attraction; the company traces its founding to 1885, when Cretors licensed his sidewalk peanut roaster in Chicago.

Which American botanist's 1904 puffing device is seen as the ancestor of the 'popcorn cannon'?

Alexander P. Anderson demonstrated puffed rice shot from his pressure cannon at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair; Quaker Oats bought his process to make puffed rice cereal.

Which company introduced the hot-air Popcorn Pumper for home use in 1978?

Hot-air popping yields popcorn with only about 5% of calories from fat, against roughly 45% for oil-popped cinema corn.

Why is high kernel expansion so closely tied to a cinema's profit on popcorn?

They buy by weight and sell by volume, so every extra cubic inch of expansion is nearly pure margin on a bucket that costs pennies in raw corn.

Besides North America, where is strung popcorn traditionally used as a Christmas decoration?

Popcorn has also been tested as biodegradable packing, but it attracts pests and is flammable and denser than polystyrene.

What is popcorn called in Mexican Spanish?

Palomitas, literally 'little doves', is the Mexican term; Argentines say pochoclo, Chileans cabritas and Venezuelans cotufas.