History of popcorn grain

Corn began as a wild grass called teosinte in southwestern Mexico and was probably cultivated as a domesticated crop around 9,000 years ago.

Scholars agree that popcorn originated in the Americas. Popcorn grains estimated to be more than 1,000 years old were found on the east coast of Peru. A 1,000-year-old popped kernel was found in a dry cave inhabited by predecessors of the Pueblo Indians in Southwestern Utah.

In 1948, small heads of the zea mays everta were discovered by Herbert Dick and Earle Smith in a dry cave known as the “bat cave.” These kernels have since been carbon dated and shown to be approximately 5,600 years old. Strains of corn (taxonomized as Zea mays) are cultivated specifically as popping corns. The Zea mays variety everta, a special kind of flint corn, is the most common of these.

Around the year 1612, early French explorers through the Great Lakes region noted that the Iroquois popped popcorn with heated sand in a pottery vessel and used it to make popcorn soup, among other things.

In the mid-1800s, the steel plow—which could cut through tough vegetation—transformed Midwestern agriculture. In Nebraska, Iowa, and Indiana, corn—especially the poppable variety—became such an important cash crop that it was dubbed “prairie gold.”

In 1875, a Kentucky resident named Frederick J. Myers patented a corn-popping device that added a stay-cool handle. Charles Cretor of Chicago is often credited as the inventor of modern popcorn, thanks to his invention of the mobile popcorn cart in 1885. Since the machine was mobile, the invention also increased the amount of people who had access to popcorn and thus the popularity of the snack in America.

Popcorn’s modern era as a favorite American snack was launched in 1893 at the New York World’s Fair. Street vendors, by the 1920s, with their steam or gas-powered poppers, were a common sight at fairs, parks and expositions.

The first hybrid popcorn for commercial production, Minhybrid 250, was released in 1934 by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station. It only grew well along the northern edge of the U.S. corn belt, but was quickly followed by hybrids adapted to the central region of the corn belt.

By the 1940s, more widely adapted hybrids had been developed by Indiana and Kansas Agricultural Experiment Stations in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry. Modern plant breeders, concentrated in the heart of the U.S. Corn Belt, continue their quest to develop improved popcorn hybrids.

When popcorn was first sold inside movie theaters, almost 100 years ago, it actually helped buoy the business, which was flailing at the time as the country entered the Great Depression. A successful popcorn advertising partnership with Coca-Cola and Morton Salt, along with advertisements of individual popcorn companies made the early 1950s the largest home-consumption growth period for the popcorn industry.
History of popcorn grain

Charles Cretors invented popcorn machine

The original method used to popcorn was to hold and shake a wire basket filled with raw corn kernels over an open flame or fire.

Charles Cretors was the first of Chicago to develop a steam-driven machine in 1885 to popcorn in such volume that it could be sold from street wagons propelled first by hand, then by horse and finally by gasoline motor.

Creator got a license to operate his machine on the street and the rest was history. The Cretors machine automatically popped corn in a mixture of one-third clarified butter and two-third lard and salt. He was the first to use oil. The result was a machine that popped corn in its own seasoning – uniformity for the first time.

A gasoline fueled wet (oil) popping machine which was also had a small compartment for roasting peanuts. It was patented in 1893 and shown at the Columbian Exposition that year.

These carts were quickly seen on every street following the hungry crowds.

The machine could roast 12 pounds of peanuts, 20 pounds of coffee, popcorn and bake chestnuts as well.
Charles Cretors invented popcorn machine 

History of Popcorn

History of Popcorn
Corn has been basic food in South and North America for over 5,000 years. No one knows when primitive man first discovered that certain varieties of corn explode when exposed to intense heat, but it must have been a significant advancement to a people with only teeth and crude grinding tools.

All the native Americans ate popcorn to some degree.

The ancient Inca and Peruvian civilizations used the colorful popcorn for both food and ceremonial decorations.

The oldest identified corn poppers have been found along the Northeast coasts of Peru and date from about 300 AD.

The oldest written record is from a Spaniard in 1650, who said that the Indians called the popped product “pisancalla.”

Early American settlers cultivated (flint-type) popcorn, which was used as a snack and breakfast cereal dent corn was used for corn flour and corn bread.

Many families owned corn poppers consisting of wire basket, with long wire handles tipped with wood, for holding and shaking popcorn over flames in fireplace.

A hot air process, with wire baskets shaken over a flame, was used.

In 1885, Charles Cretors left Decatur, Illinois for Chicago to become street vendor and develop peanut roaster.

A gasoline fueled wet (oil) popping machine which was also had a small compartment for roasting peanuts, was patented in 1893 and shown at the Columbian Exposition that year.

Passers by stopped to watch corn popping and purchase bags of fresh product for a nickel. These colorful machines were readily accepted by street vendors, circuses and carnivals for many years.

Another milestone on popcorn history at the 1893 exposition was the introduction of Cracker Jack caramel coated popcorn, the first commercially successful snack based on popcorn.

This product line, with the traditional small prize in the package, was purchased in 1899 by the nations largest food producer Frito Lay Company of Dallas, Texas.
History of Popcorn