Pop Corn History: Popitics and Poptential for Popfits

From children's amusement to profitable cash crop, the popping varieties of corn quickly covered the distance.  Insofar as popped corn has been a valued food for thousands of years it is interesting to see the entrepreneurial newcomers to North America took awhile to see the possibilities.  Once they did, however, popcorn started its climb to where the Chicago-based Popcorn Board, created by an act of Congress in 1996, expects to spend nearly a half-million dollars on international promotion.

"Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain... said that month on the Senate floor that subsidies to the popcorn industry could total $91 million over the next 10 years, and he argued that federal crop-insurance programs shouldn’t protect popcorn. Noting that the price of popcorn had risen 40 percent in recent years, thanks to Congress’ backing of ethanol and new free-trade agreements with Colombia and South Korea, he said: “There isn’t a kernel of evidence that they need this support from taxpayers.”"

Backing up from the current popitics to the "early" days of popping corn to amuse kids over long winter days, here are some articles and images I gathered.

Report on the Varieties of Indian Corn

By W. Webb

"In consequence of the call made on me by the Society at its last meeting,

 I have thrown together the following statement of facts on the different
varieties of Indian Corn."  (Too boring to post except for the last.)

In 1822, W. Webb identified 14 types of corn,  each listed with a brief mention of its usefulness. "The fourteenth is an unprofitable sort, called Pop Corn, used to feed chickens, and to amuse children."

1872- The Nursery, Vol. 11  

In the later 1800s, popcorn balls and popcorn cakes were popular, as was home popped corn.
I found many references to awful popcorn sold in little paper bags. Stale, I suppose.   I don't think that applied to the popcorn wagons that popped it in front of you! And I read that sometimes the butter on the product was not butter...ick.

These popcorn wagons stayed popular for many decades!1914 image from Howard County Historical Society

A popcorn cake is just a flat slab of popcorn ball confection, cut into pieces.  I was sort of hoping it was a cake!  I looked up the recipe and was disappointed.  Oh well.

1900 - MONEY IN POP CORN - 

The Irrigation Age, Volumes 14-15

The demand for pop corn increases every year, yet the crop is never equal to the market. Good corn sells on the retail market today for five to six cents a pound. Farmers do not consider the profits of this special crop or there would be more grown for supplying home demands. An acre will produce from fifty to one hundred bushels of salable corn and a ton or more fodder. The corn weighs 56 pounds to the bushel and never sells for less than $1.50 to $2.50 a bushel. The folder will pay for the cost of growing and the corn be left as a fair profit after paying rental and interest on the land. From those who make a business of raising pop corn I learn that a poor crop will bring $100 an acre, and many get double that sum from an acre every year.

Pop corn requires about the same soil as that demanded by the sweet and field varieties. A sod or vegetable mould, containing more sand than clay and having previous clean culture is best adapted to corn corn growing. If plowed in the fall or winter and left to freeze until the spring weeds begin to grow before planting the land will be in fine condition. As the plant ripens during the hot summer months the use of nitrogenous fertilizing elements is not very beneficial, but there is no field crop that yields better returns from liberal application of potash and phosphoric acid. Numerous experimental stations report that potash alone has increased the yield of field corn over 20 bushels per acre, and added one half ton of fodder. The increase in pop corn is more marked by using 500 pounds of a fertilizer containing 10 per cent potash and 8 percent phosphoric acid than by any other means.

There are different varieties of pop corn, all possessing merit as marketable crops. The white rice is probably the most in demand, but yellow or golden, gives perfect satisfaction to those who purchase by the carload for commercial purposes. The Mapledale Prolific is a very choice variety having from eight to twelve good ears on each stalk. There are several mixed colored kinds much esteemed for ornamental frames of dainty handwork. When popped, one quart of good corn will make a bushel of balls or bricks in which form it is usually sold at confectionary stands, pleasure resorts and thousands of other places. The pop corn business has become so important that large sums are paid for privileges of selling at fairs, picnics and public conventions.

The corn gets better with age, but it can be sundried and made marketable the first year. As a general rule the poppers want want it three years old. After getting thoroughly dry in the shoch it can be husked put in gunny sacks and left in the sun for several days, when it will bd thoroughly dried. If completely dried it will sell better after being shelled, which can be done with a commercial shellers. Many farmer boys might find a very profitable winter trade in popping corn, buttering the rolls and selling it in neighboring cities and towns. Two or three quarts, costing less than a dollar, will plant an acre. The cultivation is about the same as for field corn, and consists in keeping the plow going and cutting out the weeds. It must not be put in near field corn, as the pollen will cause the varieties to mix.

Pop corn may be planted closer than any other varieties. One man reports having grown 176 bushels the past year upon an acre. His plan of planting is to make the furrows three feet apart and have the corn stand one stalk in a hill, fourteen inches apart in the rows, If the corn is planted very early or late it will not suffer so much from the worms as the medium planted crops. Where irrigated care must be taken in keeping the water from the stalks and not give the plants more than two periods of irrigating during the growing season. The poor ears can be fed to poultry with profit and the fodder is relished by the cows, sheep and horses. A ready market always awaits the grower of good pop corn and the business is certainly profitable.

Joel Shomaker.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/10/167645/federal-spending-on-popcorn-promotion.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/10/167645/federal-spending-on-popcorn-promotion.html#storylink=cpy

1898 Paean to Popcorn!

In 1898 the Farmers and Fruit-growers' Guide had a very thorough article about the different type of corn. A fact filled article with variety comparisons, when the writers got to the pop corns they went all happy and nostalgic! This is a very pleasant read. It is a nice introduction into future popcorn posts in the planning.
While we write it as popcorn now, it was pop corn originally, becoming pop-corn by the time of this article. Actually, it was called chicken corn before any pop name.
I hope you enjoy this excerpt as much as I did...the creative writing part starts about 3 paragraphs in!
 BTW - this is an Australian piece.

How to pop— It is half the battle to have the corn properly cured, but not more than half; the popping is the other half. If the corn is properly cured, the popping is bound to be some sort of a success; but to attain the best success a little practice is necessary. It is a delicate operation, in which a few seconds make all the difference. Have a hot fire. If the fire is in a stove, have the lids so hot that they gleam in the dark. This is the beet heat of all, and secures good results with the utmost certainty. If such a heat cannot be obtained, the corn may be popped directly over coals. Never put too much corn into the popper at once. The popper is a hopper made of wire-netting (corn-proof), and having a wooden handle about a yard long, attached the dipper. Barely cover the bottom of the popper with kernels, and then close the lid and fasten it so securely that the popper may be turned upside down with impunity. Now warm the corn at some distance from the stove or coals, keeping it always in motion by shaking the popper back and forth, until the first kernels are heard to pop; then lower the popper as near the coals as possible, and shake vigorously until all are popped. It is a lively time. There is nothing morose about pop-corn. How it snaps! It is enough to carry the old soldier back to war times. It starts reminiscences. You are in for a night of it—but you must look out that it does not burn; keep it shaking! After the last kernels have ceased popping, raise the popper a bit, and roast the popped mass a minute or two, turning all sides to the fire. Be careful that it does not scorch or catch on fire. It will burn like tinder. Now it is done. Open the popper lid and pour into a tin basin; salt it, or butter it and then salt it, and put it before your guest within five minutes. He will thank you, especially if his only previous acquaintance with popcorn has been through the medium of the man who sells it in paper bags. Butter should be supplied in small quantities. Melt a piece half the size of a small walnut in a large dish and pour the popped corn on it, and stir it a moment while hot. Serve the corn in another warm dish. Butter all the corn in same dish, adding butter and melting it as required. It is surprising how much popped corn a man can eat. A peck is a moderate allowance. Most people get modest before they have eaten all they would really like. A good sized handful of kernels makes a peck when popped. Popped-corn is very easily digested, and children may have an unlimited supply of it. They love it dearly (of course I do not refer to that sold by the paper-bag man). Popped-corn is often eaten in milk. It is a dish well suited to children and persons of weak digestion. It is well worth noting that popped-corn furnished the idea for the preparation of corn starch or flour on an extensive commercial scale.Corn starch is now prepared by saturating corn with superheated steam under pressure in iron cylinders. When the proper pressure is reached the end of the cylinder is suddenly knocked off, and the whole mass instantly explodes into the finest starch imaginable. Popped-corn, it must be remembered, is a winter luxury in America, and is not so much thought of in summer. Many along winter's evening is sweetened by its presence among the high as well as low, but it is at the farmer's fireside that it is seen at its best. It is long since dark, and the "chores" are done. Father sits before the fire deciphering the political situation by the aid of the local paper; mother is knitting stockings. Some one is inspired with the thought of popped-corn. The corn is stored up-stairs out in the long wood-house. It is freezing cold; and it makes the cold-shivers run down the backs of the girls to think of going for it. Susan thinks Mary ought to go. Mary thinks Susan ought to go. They both think Tommy ought to go—he knows best which to bring. Tommy being the youngest, of course has to go ; but he has the satisfaction of having Mary sent along with him "to see that he does not set the house on fire with the light." The corn shelled, the popper is got down from the top shelf in the pantry, and then there is a bustle to "see which fire is the best." This momentous question settled, it is not long before the first shot is heard along the skirmish line, followed by a rattling volley—from the popper. A delicate aroma steals through the house, and about this time father awakes to the situation, and is ready for the nonce to let politics go to the dogs, and drown his fear of the country being wrecked generally, in a plate of popped-corn. It is grand. The memory of it is worth thousands of pounds in after life. What would the American Christmas be without popped corn? It is matchless for festooning Christmas-trees, and is universally employed in various ways. Strung on threads by dainty fingers, it is used in yards upon yards, and forms snow-white delicate festoons which contrast beautifully with the green of the spruce tree and the light of the candles. At all church Christmas festivals bags of lollies are hung on the trees, one for each child, judiciously diluted with fresh popped corn—a bit of economy; it makes the lollies go further, and besides it is better for the children. Pop-corn cakes and pop-corn balls.—These are the accompaniments of the Yankee candy-pull. A candy-pull is an evening party whose ostensible object is to transform New Orleans or Porto Rico molasses (treacle) into candy (lollies), a process which it is not necessary to describe here, and then to make away with the same; but which is in reality designed to bring people together in social intercourse. Popped-corn can be made to adhere in balls or cakes by the application of a very small amount of hot, well cooked molasses. The combination is a very pleasant one. The process is carried out on a commercial scale by many confectioners. Carefully assorted popped-corn, coarsely pulverized and freed of all hard parts, is cemented into cakes 2 inches by 2 inches, and half an inch thick by means of cooked molasses, and put on the market in tins like those used for biscuits. It is one of the best confections made. There are two other ways of popping corn that deserve mention: Have a saucepan of boiling hot fat and drop the kernels, a few at a time, into the fat. They sink but soon pop and come to the top, and are then taken off immediately with a skimmer and salted. This does very well in cold climates where appetites are sharp, but the result is a little too greasy to be appetizing under other circumstances. Finally, corn may be popped in hot ashes. Have a bed of new hot ashes and a clean hearth. Throw the kernels into the ashes and they will soon pop out on to the hearth surprisingly clean. "The little boy gathered them into a heap,  And called them his flock of milk white sheep."

1895: Popcorn as Social Engineering

School is out!  

While I'll still go in to school to get things stowed away I can think about this blog again.
So here is seed catalog advice from 1895 on keeping kids at home and off the streets...popcorn!

It was a rough week.  My art supply closet of 25 years was needed for something else and I had to box everything to be hauled off to storage elsewhere.  And there were no boxes.  And no place ready to receive anything. It has been difficult.  And really hot.  And awful...

And that is why I was preoccupied with finding happy images the last week or so!  Therapy.

Check out this Pop Corn paragraph to the right.  Reminds me of the Music Man!

Are this many varieties available now?  I'll have to look.  How about Tattooed Yankee!! That seems very au courant :-)

Happy Image 12: Young Love

I have to confess the image below is as found on Biodiversity History.  I didn't like the red.  Did you know females see more shades of red than males?

Happy Image 11: Cute Little Carrot Top From 1922

This is hard to beat for happy sweet.  D. M. Ferry had a good illustrator.
Just for fun, compare it to the Barnard attempt at the same feeling below.

I suppose it isn't a fair comparison since a lot has happened between 1915 and 1922.

But, still, it makes you appreciate the looser style of 1922.

Happy Image 10: Sunday Drive

Jerome B. Rice's Seed Company has the most fantastic trade cards.  Much better than any others. But other than that I had not found much.  Then this appeared at auction (not ebay for once...)!

I find it charming, and, of course, happy...saved from being vapidly sweet by the touring car, the city folks and the aggressively colored beautiful vegies around the basket.  

Happy Image 9: Cloud Nine Harvest

You absolutely knew how your garden would make you feel

when looking at this Burpee catalog cover!