Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/food_and_dining/article/0,1626,ECP_766_3479355,00.html" target="_blank">http://www.courierpress.com/ec p/food_and_dining/article/0,1626,ECP_766_3479355,00.html</a> >>All you have to do is mention "popcorn," and every sense I have becomes heightened. I can eat a four-course meal and still be tempted by a bowl of popcorn. I don't care whether it has been freshly popped or has been patiently waiting for me for several days. I have no idea how old I was when I tasted popcorn for the first time, but I was addicted for life after my first bite. Popcorn should rank right up there with apple pie as a true American symbol. Americans eat more popcorn than anyone else in the world. We devour about 70 quarts per person each year. The folks who eat the most, according to Jolly Time researchers, live in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn. Our love affair with popcorn may have begun in Mexico. The oldest known corn pollen (not popcorn) was an 80,000-year-old fossil found 200 feet below Mexico City. It is believed corn was first cultivated in the highlands of Mexico 7,000 years ago and one of the first uses was to pop it. In 1948 and 1950, the oldest ears of popping corn were found in the Bat Cave in New Mexico. Those ears were thought to be 5,600 years old. When Christopher Columbus arrived in the West Indies in 1492, the native inhabitants sold popcorn to his crew, who took some back to Spain. By the time Europeans began settling in the New World, corn had spread to all the Indian tribes throughout South and North America. Corn was an important food for the Aztecs. They not only ate it, but also used the popped kernels as decoration on headdresses, necklaces and costumes. When the Pilgrims landed, they were greeted by native Americans wearing popcorn necklaces. In 1620, Indians brought popcorn as gifts to the first Thanksgiving. The first corn was popped by tossing the ears into hot sand next to campfires or putting it into clay containers held near the fire. The colonists used cylinders made from thin sheet iron revolving on an axis. During the 18th century, oiled popcorn took off in popularity. The first corn popper was a mobile machine introduced at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. In 1914, Cloid Smith began America's first popcorn company in Sioux City, Iowa. He called the company American Pop Corn Co. and called his product Jolly Time Pop Corn. Popcorn became commercially popular during the Great Depression, when buying a bag of popcorn for 5 to 10 cents was one of the true luxuries for the struggling population. During World War II, sugar was rationed, leaving very little to make candy. Americans began eating popcorn instead, consuming three times their normal amount. The only slump in consumption happened in the 1950s when television was introduced. People stopped going out to movie theaters and began being entertained in their own homes. But it didn't take long for folks to figure out they could snack on popcorn while watching their favorite shows. The first microwaved food was popcorn. In 1946, Percy Spencer, a researcher with the Raytheon Corp., was experimenting with a new type of vacuum tube, a magnetron. He tossed some popcorn kernels next to the magnetron and they popped. Raytheon kept experimenting and developed the first microwave oven. Today, microwave popcorn sales top $250 billion a year, and microwaving has become the most popular way of popping corn.<<
