National Popcorn Day

National Popcorn Day

Today, January 19, is National Popcorn Day.  There are six main varieties of corn, popcorn being one of them.  Popcorn originally stared in Mexico and then made it to the United States. In the early days, the Native Americans throw the kernels on the hot stones of a fire to pop it. Americans eat about 16 billion quarts of popcorn each year. That’s about 51 quarts per person and it is considered one of the most popular snacks in the United States

I remember 60 plus years ago my mom would add popcorn kernels in a kettle with a little oil and pop it on the stove.  As the years when by, companies came up with different methods to pop it.  One was Jiffy Pop where it was in an aluminum pie plate covered with a piece of aluminum foil.  You would shake it back and forth on the stove burner and as the popcorn popped, the aluminum cover grow like a big bubble!  Of course when the microwave became so popular in the 1980’s, all you had to do was add popcorn to a microwave safe bowl and watch it pop.   Then the companies started putting popcorn in pouches with butter already added. Just stick the flat pouch in the microwave and as it popped, the bag grew, three minutes later the popcorn was ready.

If you have ever traveled through Indiana, you will see the fields with rows and rows of popcorn growing and silos for storing it.  Indiana ranks second in the nation for popcorn production with Nebraska ranking first.

Popcorn is  healthy to eat and an inexpensive snack plus there are many different things you can do with popcorn.  Of course adding caramel or flavored salts make it so good and popcorn balls are great for Halloween.  Christmas is when many thread popcorn and decorate Christmas trees, both inside and outside where it’s fun to watch the birds eat it.  They even make flavored popcorn and have popcorn specialty stores.

I have had many different flavors of popcorn but my old time favorite is hot popcorn, drenched in butter!  What is your favorite popcorn flavor?