Author succumbing to collateral "corn-age." Photo by Christie Kitchens
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The Art of the Corn
by Phil Houseal
Feb 3, 2010
With Super Bowl weekend looming, let's plunge into the lore of party snacks and discuss the art of popping corn.
Popped corn is the granddaddy of all finger foods, the heart of a party of one or a theaterful.
The legend goes back to Native Americans, who startled pioneers with the magical cob that burst into white, fluffy clouds they could eat with their pemmican and squash.
Leap ahead 500 years to the popcorn we grew up munching. Kernels sizzling in oil on the stovetop, dumped into a large roasting pan, smothered in salt and passed around the laps of my brothers and sisters who were installed on the couch watching Alfred Hitchcock.
When I left home for college and the road, popcorn went with me and sustained me. It was a cheap, easy snack that was always handy, always welcome. In the Pre-Microwavian Era, we had to pop it using heat and oil. I carried a two-piece popper: the bottom half was the heating element, the top half was a pan that nestled in nicely. The popper also served as a handy warming device in which I heated soup, boiled hot dogs, and made mac and cheese.
On my travels, I met a guru who guided me further in the ways of the corn. He possessed one of those stirring kettles. It was a silver pan with fitted lid, charred with the patina of many popping episodes. The top sported a crank projecting from a wooden handle. The crank turned two paddles that gently stirred the kernels through the oil, evenly heating while keeping them from burning. The process of creating the perfect bowl of popcorn became a Geisha-like tea ceremony - setting the right heat, accompanied with continual shaking and steady cranking as the kernels began to explode, then removing the pan from the heat at the height of poppiness and dumping the corn steaming into the waiting wooden bowl. Merely eating the popcorn was anticlimactic.
Today, I am strictly an air popper - the ascetic of popping-dom. (I avoided the whole sordid microwave popcorn era - kernels encased in lard and salt do not appeal to my popcorn palate. The resulting snack is at the same time dry and greasy, salty and flavorless, leaden yet unsustaining.)
Popping corn with hot air also has its rituals. One must add the raw kernels to the popper boldly and generously in order to avoid escaping seeds (premature pop-ulation). Then there is the proper positioning of the receptacle to capture stray kernels, minimizing collateral cornage.
Air corn does not have to mean bare corn. I like to drizzle my butter lovingly over the fresh, hot corn, thereby controlling the amount and distribution. The ideal is a touch of butter on each fluffy kernel, but that is still an unreached goal. And avoid the margarines and low-fat substitutes! They are mostly water, which just results in soggy popcorn.
Then there is the whole aspect of garnish. I have embraced seasoning beyond salt. Over the years I have experimented with basil, garlic, oregano, peanuts, and chocolate chips. Radical, yet I disdain popcorn balls - those hard, sugary, gooey globs that stick to teeth and coat the tongue.
As I have grown in wisdom, I find comfort in enjoying the snack in its elemental glory: a lovingly popped white kernel, a drop of butter, a grain of salt. Add a jelly jar of mercantile merlot, and we have entered snacking nirvana.
Bon appetit.