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By Joel Vernier
I love popcorn! I truly enjoy waking up from an evening nap to the sound of popping popcorn and the air filled with its savory aroma! I have enjoyed eating popcorn since I was a child. My parents would drop me off at the hometown theatre for a matinee and give me a couple of dollars for popcorn and a pop.
Who invented popcorn? People in the Americas have been eating popcorn for thousands of years. The earliest evidence of popping corn comes from Peru around 4700 BCE, over 6,700 years ago! The first commercial popping machine was invented by Charles Cretors in Chicago in 1885. That invention has been followed by air poppers, Whirley Pop machines, and thousands more! The Paragon 1911 model costs $770.00 and is supposed to taste like theatre popcorn! As a teen, I loved making “Jiffy Pop, watching it begin to pop, and the foil cover would expand was fun! Remember, we did not have the internet or computer games back in the day!
Americans consume up to 50 quarts of popcorn per person per year, that’s a jumbo serving of popcorn every week! The US popcorn market reached $ 5.7 billion in 2025.
Plain air-popped popcorn is a very healthy snack! Of course, loaded up with butter and salt, not so much. At some locations, theater popcorn has a butter machine where the public can place their popcorn under the spigot, press the button, and have it showered with butter. If your popcorn begins to float, you may have overdone it!
Popcorn with butter and salt is delicious, a true comfort food. I love the bottom of the popcorn bowl, where you can scrape butter and salt onto the popcorn and your fingers. A standard serving of buttered popcorn contains roughly 400 calories, while a large tub at the theatre can reach 2,000 calories. Better share that one!
I find that the first handful of popcorn down to the last tastes fantastic! No loss of flavor, even if you’re getting full. Popcorn is a tasty treat that fits into almost every budget, calorie-wise or financially. You can use popcorn in granola bars, cookies, in breading, or in fried chicken. Popcorn balls are a real treat. Our first Christmas tree was decorated with popcorn garland! There are wild flavors of popcorn, Wasabi, pickled herring, curry masala, bacon, maple syrup, cheese, and ranch. I love white American cheese popcorn, and ranch sounds good!
January 19th is the official National Popcorn Day in the US. I don’t think I can wait that long! I’m going to pop up some popcorn right now! How about you?
“Remember, every day is a gift! Some are just a little more fun to open than others. – Joel, Author of “The Guinea Pig In The Freezer”. joelmvernier@aol.com
