We were popping corn
Sweet Kitty and I;
It danced about,
And it danced up high.
The embers were hot,
In their fiery light;
And it went up brown,
And it came down white.
White and beautiful,
Crimped and curled.
The prettiest fairy-dance in the world!
—from “Popping Corn,”
by Charles Steward
“Try the new taste sensation! Free! Popcorn popped in butter—a revolutionary new method just patented! Try a bag for free!” So cried Charles “C. C.” Cretors, inventor of the popcorn machine, at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.1 This was not the first time Americans had had popcorn, but it might be said that this was the beginning of the modern age of popcorn.
Popcorn, though the oldest race of corn, is a relative newcomer to most of North America. While it was grown as a novelty in a substantial number of American gardens by the mid-1800s, there really was no U.S. popcorn industry prior to the 1880s.2
FIGURE 15. This engraving is of the 1893 popcorn machine that Charles “C. C.” Cretors introduced at the Chicago Columbian Exhibition. Note that the Tosty Rosty Man is already present in this version, on top of the machine, apparently hard at work cranking the gears. Photo courtesy of C. Cretors & Co.
There are stories of early popcorn use, including tales of Native American popcorn balls made with maple syrup being given to the Pilgrims—but they’re apocryphal. The Pilgrims themselves, who reported on everything they were eating in the New World, never mentioned popcorn, in balls or otherwise, and no archaeological evidence for the existence of popcorn has been turned up in the first European settlements, or even in much later settlements.3 At best, early arrivals would have been exposed to parched corn—the local flint corn heated until it cracked open, making it toasty-tasting and possible to eat without grinding.
Interestingly, while not the sort of thing that proves anything to scientists, teosinte, the progenitor of all maize varieties, pops—just like popcorn. When heated to the point of bursting, teosinte produces that nice white flake that identifies popcorn as being popcorn.4
The scientific name for popcorn is Zea mays everta, referring to the characteristic tendency of popcorn’s endosperm to turn inside out (everta simply means “something that turns outward or inside out”). Research done in the 1940s in Mexico to identify all the most ancient grains in the region of corn’s genesis found that, in fact, all the most ancient races were everta types—that is, they were all popcorn. Interestingly, during the course of this research, though archaeologists unearthed ancient popcorn that was more than four thousand years old, they found that, at least as late as the 1950s, these same varieties were still being grown in Mexico.5
So clearly, popcorn has been around for a while. However, its spread differed from that of flint, flour, and dent corns. Some popcorn headed north, into the American Southwest, where it would be a long time before Europeans came in contact with the local cultures and crops. The rest stayed in Central America or headed to South America and remained there, at least until the Spanish arrived. Even then, while there is evidence that popcorn was carried to Europe and even Asia, it didn’t receive much of a welcome and pretty quickly vanished off the radar, at least as far as Europeans were concerned.6
If you’ve read Moby Dick, you may remember that South America was among the destinations visited by whalers and other seafarers from New England in the early 1800s. It may not come as too much of a surprise, then, that popcorn first appeared in the United States in New England seaports in the early 1800s, most likely introduced from South America. Wherever the seafarers did pick up popcorn, once it reached the United States, it was quickly adopted and soon on the move. By the end of the Civil War, popcorn had spread throughout the nation. But that doesn’t mean people had figured out quite what to do with it.
Americans spent the better part of the 1800s experimenting with ways to make popcorn. Methods ranged from holding wire baskets over an open fire (attempting to move the basket rapidly enough to not burn all the popcorn), to dropping the kernels into the coals and trying to snatch the popped flakes out before they burst into flame, to putting the popcorn in a pot full of lard and skimming the popped kernels off when they floated to the top. These approaches were far from ideal, but the magic of those small, fragrant explosions and the crunchy snowstorm they created kept people trying to find the perfect method for popping corn.7
After the Civil War, the number and variations of corn poppers grew rapidly, with inventors continuing to look for ways of popping corn without burning either the corn or the people doing the popping. As people began to replace cooking over open fires with cooking on wood-burning stoves, the danger of burning hands or clothing diminished. As more poppers appeared in mail-order catalogs, more recipes for popcorn began to appear in magazines.8 Many of the recipes were for confections. In My Ántonia, Willa Cather mentions one of the most popular applications: “We had begun to roll popcorn balls with syrup.” However, popcorn might also be used in lieu of croutons in soup or on salads; it could be served with milk and sugar for breakfast; and the 1896 version of Fannie Farmer’s Original Boston School of Cooking Cookbook has a recipe for pudding that uses finely ground popped corn.
At this point, most popcorn was grown in home gardens. This was often the first job a young boy would have. He’d be given a patch of land and learn the art of farming with his own private crop of popcorn, which he could then sell to neighbors or at the local general store. From plowing to planting to weeding to harvest, chores fit in before or after school, the popcorn field was the domain of the youngster to whom the land was given. Seed catalogs that offered popcorn seeds even suggested that boys be given an acre of land of their own to raise popcorn.9
This is not to say that no adults worked at earning money with popcorn. There were popcorn stands in Chicago not long after the Civil War, generally offering homemade popcorn balls or fresh but rather dry popcorn popped over an open flame. Shortly after the Great Chicago Fire (1871), two brothers from Germany, Frederick and Louis Rueckheim, began to build a successful business selling candy and popcorn.10 There were no large commercial poppers, so they, like everyone else, used a handheld popper sold for home use. As was common at the time, the Rueckheim brothers experimented with sweet coatings for their popcorn. In 1896 (by which time steam-powered poppers had become available), the brothers began to market a blend of popcorn and peanuts covered with a molasses coating. There are conflicting stories as to how it got its name, but “Cracker Jack” would be one of the first popcorn products to become an American icon.11
It was Charles Cretors who, in 1893, invented (and patented) a machine that would not only pop the corn, but also automatically butter and salt it. The machine was run by a steam engine that Cretors had been improving since 1885 and using to roast peanuts and coffee, as well as to pop corn.12 It was this popcorn machine that would open the door to a new industry. But it wasn’t just the machine—it was the time period and the way the culture was changing.
In the late 1800s, increased leisure time and a vast transportation network connecting most parts of the country began to give rise to something that would come to define American culture: consumerism. During the last decades of the nineteenth century, the idea of the department store was born, and in the Midwest the 1880s and 1890s gave rise to many of the region’s best-known retail titans: Marshall Field’s; Carson, Pirie, Scott; Sears, Roebuck & Company; and Montgomery Ward (though Ward’s initial success was through the creation of the mail-order business that targeted farmers, rather than through a physical store).13
People were buying more, traveling more, doing more. Trains meant it took hours to get somewhere, instead of days or weeks, and the time saved was being enjoyed. While a large number of people continued to look for additional ways to save time, others looked for new ways to spend their newfound leisure hours.
With everyone out and about, the selling of items specifically designed to be snacks seemed like a natural progression. That’s what Charles Cretors thought when he started his company in 1885, and his idea was confirmed as he offered his popcorn to fairgoers in 1893. However, Cretors wasn’t really selling popcorn—he was selling startup businesses in the form of his beautifully designed, handcrafted popcorn and peanut carts. Scientific American, impressed with this new invention, noted, “This machine . . . was designed with the idea of moving it about to any location where the operator would be likely to do a good business. The apparatus, which is light and strong, and weighing but 400 or 500 pounds, can be drawn readily by a boy or by a small pony to any picnic ground, fair, political rally, etc. and to many other places where a good business could be done for a day or two.”14 The machines also became popular with some merchants, who could wheel the small carts out in front of their stores to attract customers.
The carts were beautiful—almost works of art. They also offered entertainment: not only could customers watch the popcorn popping, there was a glass cylinder filled with peanuts that appeared to be cranked by a little clown in a red suit—the Tosty Rosty Man.15
FIGURE 16. In the early 1900s, thousands of people across the Midwest got their start in business with one of these elegant Cretors popcorn and peanut wagons. This wagon was designed to be pulled by a horse, but later models had motors. Photo courtesy of C. Cretors & Co.
The Cretors popper continued to evolve. While the carts continued to be popular, Cretors developed a series of increasingly large wagons, first horse-drawn and then with engines. These mobile concession stands offered the convenience of modern food trucks, as well as the opportunity to start a business without owning property.
Despite the devastating economic situation of the late 1890s, the business slowly grew, with Charles Cretors selling popcorn carts to people who could never have started a business any other way. The mobile wagons, with their handsome brass fittings, were sufficiently elegant to establish owners as small businesses, rather than simply as street peddlers. And Cretors offered something else that helped those small businesses get started, something a little harder to come by than popcorn: credit. The wagons could be bought on time. The Cretors wagon in essence created a new, more respectable class of street vendor.16
By the beginning of the 1900s, thousands of men and women across the Midwest were making their livings selling popcorn from Cretors wagons. In 1907, Cretors sold his first popper/roaster with an electric motor, in place of the steam engine that powered all previous machines. Then, in 1909, he sold the first automobile model. However, 1909 also saw the end of patent protection for the popcorn popper, and suddenly Cretors faced an explosion of competition.17 Cretors had the advantage of name recognition and 25 years of experience. Still, it was a new game, and advertising and marketing were going to become more important. Fortunately, a history of innovation, integrity, and hard work kept the company moving forward through all the changes about to hit the United States and the popcorn trade. Testimonials from successful vendors made great ad copy, and the company continued to grow. C. Cretors & Company passed from father to son for 125 years and is now run by Andrew Cretors, the great-great-grandson of “C. C.,” the company’s founder.
Paralleling the growth of popcorn consumption was the beginning of the commercial growing and processing of popcorn. Seed companies began contracting with farmers to grow and supply popcorn. Initially, the popcorn was sold still on the cob, but stores began to demand that the corn be shelled. Open barrels of shelled popcorn followed, until such time as reformers concerned with public health suggested that this wasn’t the most sanitary of options. So packaging was devised—simple cardboard boxes—and packaging offered the opportunity of branding. The first popcorn company to trademark brand names was the Albert Dickinson Company of Odebolt, Iowa, which introduced its Snow Ball brand popcorn in 1891 and its Yankee brand in 1892. Other brands followed as demand continued to increase.18
More companies formed when it became clear this market was just going to keep growing. In 1914, Cloid H. Smith started a little company in the basement of his home in Sioux City, Iowa. He called it the American Popcorn Company. Smith wanted to package popcorn that was not only top-quality, but also consistent from one bag to the next. All members of the family were involved in growing, picking, shelling, and grading the corn. He named his popcorn Jolly Time, and he sold more than 75,000 pounds the first year he was in business. It wasn’t long before he moved out of the basement, and within the year, Smith had built storage for 500,000 pounds of popcorn. Discovering that popcorn popped better if it was aged for a year, the Smith family soon built a larger facility. The family began selling popping oils, salt, and cartons, as well as corn. The company continued to grow and prosper, and today, a fourth generation of the Smith family continues to provide Jolly Time to a still-strong popcorn market.19
The advent of motion pictures and the Great Depression simply poured fuel on the fire. People who could afford little else in the way of luxuries during the Great Depression could afford popcorn. It took a while for movie theaters to accept indoor eating (butter on the carpet didn’t make theater owners happy), but the Depression actually spurred the adoption. Obviously, popcorn machines had to be remodeled to fit the theaters, versus the street—but that adjustment was quickly made by companies eager for new outlets. Selling popcorn, which had a 70 percent markup, made movie theaters profitable while still keeping admission prices low. The Depression was a hugely successful time for both movies and popcorn.20 By the time this period ended, no one could imagine movies without popcorn.
World War II saw the next big surge in popcorn consumption. With rationing, and with sugar being sent overseas to the troops, there were few luxuries on the home front. Popcorn was a cheap thrill at a time when people needed something inexpensive, fun, and reminiscent of better days. Americans consumed three times the popcorn they had previously.21
With the advent of television in the 1950s, popcorn sales began to sag, as people had begun to think of popcorn as something they ate when they went out. Advertising for popcorn switched to convincing people that home popping was a great idea. In the early 1950s, E-Z Pop offered a disposable pan with a folded aluminum “lid” that expanded when the pan was heated, filling with popped popcorn. Five years later, Jiffy Pop came out with a very similar but slightly improved design. But as easy as these options were, the microwave oven would be responsible for the next huge jump in consumption.
Today, Americans consume more than 16 billion quarts of popped popcorn each year. That’s roughly fifty-two quarts per man, woman, and child. Popcorn offers an advantage unusual among snack foods: it’s both economical and wholesome (it is a whole grain that offers a considerable fiber hit). Also, popping it oneself makes it easier to control the levels of fat and sodium. And home is now where the crunch is, with about 70 percent of all popcorn eaten at home, whether popped there or bought pre-popped. The remaining 30 percent is consumed at theaters, sporting events, schools, fairs, and similar venues where people enjoy indulging in America’s snack.22
Almost all the world’s popcorn is grown in the Midwest. Nebraska is the top popcorn producer in the country, raising around 295 million pounds of shelled popcorn per year. That’s almost a third of all the popcorn produced annually in the United States. Indiana is next in line, with Illinois and Ohio also being top popcorn producers.23 A number of towns bill themselves as “Popcorn Capital of the World,” all of them in the Midwest, of course, and all of them places where popcorn is a key part of the local economy. Marion, Ohio, and Van Buren, Indiana, both have huge annual popcorn festivals, and Marion is also home to the Wyandot Popcorn Museum. The sign at the entrance to North Loup, Nebraska, identifies the town as the “Home of Popcorn Days.” Orville Redenbacher’s hometown of Valparaiso, Indiana, has a pretty solid claim to popcorn fame. Ridgway, Illinois, and Schaller, Iowa, also have Popcorn Days celebrations and consider themselves popcorn “capitals.”
Growing popcorn does not differ dramatically from growing field corn or sweet corn, but popcorn does have a few special needs. Tom Decker, owner of Farmers Best Popcorn in Rockwell, Iowa, grows both popcorn and field corn. He notes that popcorn gets planted a couple of weeks later than field corn, because it needs warmer soil. He says popcorn is a little finicky regarding water, and the plants are more delicate than field corn. Growing popcorn is also a bit more work. “There is no GMO popcorn,” Decker explains, “which means we can’t use herbicides. Cultivators, devices for mechanically removing weeds, are being thrown out on most farms, but they’re still needed for raising popcorn.”
The payoff for Decker is that growing popcorn is a start-to-finish story. “I plant the seed. I harvest it. I take samples to the grocery store to demo. So I get to watch it grow and then get to see people taste it. Plus, my daughters love helping out. It’s a good experience for them, a real family adventure.
“We grow yellow popcorn for a large snack-food company,” Decker continues, “but we grow white popcorn for our family brand, Farmers Best. Both are high-quality, but we think the white popcorn is more flavorful. It has a thinner hull, which results in a more palatable product, but it is more delicate than the yellow.”
Jim Fitkin, owner of Fitkin Popcorn in Cedar Falls, Iowa, has grown field corn and sweet corn on his fourth-generation farm. He’s been growing popcorn for twenty-six years, and notes, “You have to report the acreage for growing popcorn separately from acres for field corn.” He echoes Decker’s observations on the greater delicacy of popcorn and adds that popcorn needs less fertilizer than field corn. “Popcorn used to all be harvested on the ear and then dried in a corncrib. Some still do that, but we now use a combine, though we have to adjust the plates on the combine head, because the plants are smaller than field corn.” Fitkin notes with some amusement, “The Farm Service Agency (FSA) of the USDA classifies popcorn as a vegetable. However, the Health Department classifies it as a whole grain.
“Expansion is a key factor for rating popcorn,” Fitkin explains. “It needs to have an expansion ratio in the range of 45 to 1. That is, one pint of popcorn kernels needs to pop up into 45 pints of popped corn. This is under good popping conditions. Popcorn doesn’t pop as big in hot air poppers. Popcorn can also be rated on the number of kernels per gram, as well as for the percent of mushrooming.” The term mushrooming here refers to one of the two main designations for the shape of the popcorn flake: butterfly or mushroom. Butterfly flakes are so called because they have “wings”—bits that stick out. Butterfly popcorn is more tender and delicate. This is the most common popcorn, from home use to movie theaters. However, the “wings” can break off if there is additional processing of the popcorn—for example, coating it with flavorings. For this type of processing, the mushroom flake is a better choice. It’s more compact, rounder, without as many fragile projections.24
While popcorn exists in as wide a range of colors as all other types of corn—white, yellow, orange, red, purple, black, and shades in between—white and yellow are the colors that have the greatest commercial importance. Popcorn kernels are smaller than the kernels of other types of corn and come in two distinct shapes: rice (which is pointy) and pearl (which is rounded). While there is no GMO popcorn, there is hybridized popcorn—popcorn that has been bred for desirable traits, such as larger flake, more tender flake, more delicate hull, better flavor, more crunch, more mushrooming, and so on, depending on the desires of the end user. Interestingly, though the popcorn plant is smaller than field corn, the tassel is considerably larger, and it produces more pollen than field corn does.25
One of the most unusual traits of popcorn is that, unlike other corn races, most varieties will not cross-breed with other types of corn. Popcorn will breed with other kinds of popcorn, but many popcorn varieties will simply not “accept” pollen from dent corn, for example—the corn silk can actually prevent germination if the pollen isn’t the right sort. (Though dent will happily accept popcorn pollen.) Some popcorns have been bred for this trait, because it protects popcorn from accidentally being pollinated by, for example, a GMO dent corn, if one wishes to avoid that particular cross. It’s why kids in the old days could have an acre of popcorn on a farm with a couple hundred acres of dent corn without having it affect the popcorn. (This is actually something else that popcorn has in common with teosinte, aside from popping. Like popcorn, teosinte can pollinate corn, but corn cannot pollinate most varieties of teosinte.)26
“Popcorn consumption grew dramatically once microwave popcorn became available,” Fitkin relates. “Microwave popcorn is a huge part of the retail market today.” While microwave popcorn has become a retail giant, flavored pre-popped popcorns are still popular—and, of late, there has been a resurgence of interest in traditional stovetop popping and hot-air poppers. This “back to basics” trend is partly created by the desire to control both the types and quantities of fat in the end product, but it is also driven by the increasing availability of organic and specialty popcorns, such as red and black popcorns, which have smaller flakes but more flavor and/or more fragile hulls (which means fewer stuck between teeth). It’s also far more economical to pop one’s own.
Concerns about the safety of microwaves have also turned some away from reliance on microwave popcorn. In addition, the possibility of health issues related to the use of diacetyl in some brands of microwave popcorn has people concerned. Diacetyl is a naturally occurring substance that gives everything from butter to beer a buttery taste. However, vaporized and inhaled, as often happens with microwave popcorn—or with workers making the microwave popcorn—this substance can, over time and in large quantities, have negative effects on health, especially respiratory health.27
Popcorn is fun. Add to that the fact that it is being promoted as a healthy whole-grain snack, and it becomes even more attractive. Whether you want to try the gourmet popcorn now appearing at some farmers’ markets or specialty stores or simply want to save money or avoid potential health issues, moving back to stovetop popping can be a good choice.
As is true of other forms of corn, moisture level is an issue. In this case, it’s not to make it suitable for storing, but rather so it will pop. In order to pop well, popcorn needs to have a moisture content ranging between 11 and 14 percent.28 So if you have a three-year-old jar of popcorn, and the kernels don’t seem eager to pop, you might try adding a tablespoon of water, closing the jar tightly, shaking it up, and sticking it in the fridge until the water is absorbed. Then try popping it again.
Stovetop popping is easy and takes less time than most people think: maybe only a minute or two longer than microwave popcorn. When popping on your stovetop, if you have only one layer of kernels in the bottom of the pan, you don’t even have to shake the pan while the corn is popping.29 Stovetop popcorn is not quite as convenient as microwave popcorn, where one can eat out of the same container the popcorn was made in and then throw it out, rather than washing it. However, it’s probably more interesting and possibly safer.
Note on the opening poem: Written by Steward for The Country Gentleman magazine, January 19, 1860, p. 56; it is among the earliest poems to feature popcorn.
