Popcorn History

Kettle popped popcorn is todays answer to the ancient Indian methods developed before the European colonists even came to the Americas.

Popcorn probably originated in Mexico years before Columbus visited America. The oldest corn pollen ever found is an 80,000 year old fossil found 200 feet below Mexico City.

The word ‘corn used to signify the most-used grain of a region. Because maize was the common American “corn” it took that name. A Zapotec funeral urn from Mexico dated about 300 A.D. depicts a maize god with popcorn symbols in his headdress.

In tombs on the east coast of Peru, researchers found grains of popcorn about 1,000 years old that will still pop! Talk about resilient! In those days, corn was popped by heating sand in a fire and stirring in the kernels of popcorn.

Native American tribes used popcorn widely by the time Cortes encountered the Aztecs and found it to be an important food for them. When Columbus arrived in the West Indies the natives tried to sell popcorn to his crew and showed them how they popped an entire ear by spreading oil over it and laying it near a fire causing the kernels to pop while still attached to the ear.

The colonists found popped popcorn at the first Thanksgiving feast and colonial housewives quickly invented the first “puffed’ cereal by adding sugar and cream! During the Great Depression, popcorn at 5 or 10 cents a bag was affordable for families down on their luck. The popcorn business thrived when others failed. In World War II, sugar was scarce in the States and there was not enough to make candy. Popcorn sales again thrived, tripling sales during the war!

Americans today consume 17.3 billion quarts of popped popcorn each year and nobody makes fresh kettle popped popcorn better than Gaslamp Popcorn Co.!