Popping popcorn then and now
It’s easy to pop popcorn. Just heat sand in a fire, stir in the popcorn kernals, and there you go. How simple. Of course we have much easier (and more sanitary) popcorn popping methods than ancient Native Americans did.
The most popular method of popping popcorn today is, of course, with the microwave. A visit to the grocery store popcorn aisle will show rows of microwave popcorn. While this is an improvement to the hot sand method, many are questioning the health issues of microwave popcorn. Quite simply, those microwave popcorn bags have got a lot of calories plus an assortment of chemicals.
Step back a couple of decades and you’ve got a range of popcorn poppers. For the health conscience, hot air popcorn poppers, with only about 30 calories per serving. Oil popcorn poppers for those wanting a bit more taste. Most stores don’t carry a good selection of popcorn poppers (not with everyone purchasing microwave popcorn), but that changes online. And the popcorn poppers today are much more sophisticated that those used in the 70’s.
For people wanting to duplicate the movie theater popcorn experience, there are several popcorn machines that can bring it home. Ranging in prices from the low hundreds to thousands, these popcorn popper machines can be a great addition to a home theater or game room. And with the right seasoning, you can easily duplicate the movie theater popcorn taste.
So, we’ve improved the popcorn popping experience from what the ancient Native Americans had. However, they did have something called popcorn beer. We’ll save that for another article.
