Who invented popcorn balls

Another more fantastical story, however, comes out of Nebraska. When processed with water, it produces syrup. One day in August, it rained so hard on one farm that sorghum syrup leaked right from the grasses and drained into a nearby cornfield.

The weather then turned extremely hot; so hot, in fact, that every kernel of corn in the field dried out and popped. According to my mother, the recipe was a Halloween staple of her paternal grandmother my great-grandmother Lula Ross. By all accounts, Lula was a stellar cook, and the one whom my mother credits for her equally impressive culinary prowess.

Growing up in my house, popcorn balls were always an early sign of Halloween. In the week leading up to the 31st, my mother would be busy popping corn and rolling and wrapping the balls in colored plastic wrap. Like my great-grandmother, my mother doled her popcorn balls out judiciously, packing small baskets to send to her former Kendall Avenue neighbors from decades earlier.

As adults, my mother notes that the treat immediately brings her back to her childhood — a warm piece of nostalgia she eagerly shares with these childhood friends. Baskets also always found their way to my sibling and me.

When I headed to college, I thought that was the end of the tradition, but sure enough, a couple days before Halloween, a nondescript box arrived with a dozen fresh popcorn balls and a note from my mother. This continued even when she and my father began spending their autumns and winters in Florida, becoming an even more meaningful gesture given the distance.

Then , one year, it stopped. As Halloween slipped by with still no sign, I accepted that the tradition had passed. Apparently, my siblings had been politely choking them down all these years and had finally had enough. This reaffirmation was all she needed. Popcorn was key to many of Spencer's experiments. In the early 's, microwave popcorn was born into the popcorn family and home popcorn consumption increased by tens of thousands of pounds in the years following.

Exploring Paraguay during the 18th century, Felix de Azara told of a kind of popcorn with kernels on the tassel which, when "it is boiled in fat or oil, the grains burst without becoming detached, and there results a superb bouquet fit to adorn a lady's hair at night without anyone knowing what it was.

I have often eaten these burst grains and found them very good. During the early nineteenth century Americans tried several methods of popping popcorn. Some threw kernels in hot ashes, stirred, and sifted out the popped corn.

Others tried cooking popcorn in kettles filled with fat, lard or butter. A more popular method was cooking popcorn over an open fire in a wire box with a long wooden handle. Charles Cretors, founder of C. Cretors and Company in Chicago, introduced the world's first mobile popcorn machine at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in Scientific American reported: "This machine The apparatus, which is light and strong, and weighing but or pounds, can be drawn readily by a boy or by a small pony to any picnic ground, fair, political rally, etc.

Whether stovetop popped, fresh from the microwave see above or ready to eat, Americans love popcorn. In fact, Americans today consume 15 billion quarts of popped popcorn each year.

That averages to about 47 quarts per person. You are now leaving the popcorn. All About Popcorn. Our Story. Our Recipes. Ask Poppy. Power Pops. Media Resources. October is Popcorn Poppin' Month. History of Popcorn Discovered in the Americas thousands of years ago, popcorn has captivated people for centuries with its mythical, magical charm.

Use the buttons below to navigate through the history of popcorn and its preparation! Early History. Recent History.

Popcorn Poppers History. Recent History The use of the moldboard plow became commonplace in the mids and led to the widespread planting of maize in the United States. In the brothers made combined peanuts, popcorn, and molasses. So Louis made a formula that made a great molasses coating that was crispy and dry. This secret formula is still a secret ic the Cracker Jack Company today. This new type of packaging allowed the company to mass produce and sell Cracker Jacks worldwide, and thus become a national icon.

The company was re-organized in under the name Rueckheim Bros. Note: This song is still sung at baseball games today. Despite the fact that neither Norworth or Tilzer had ever been to a baseball game at the time the song was written, it is one of the most widely sung songs in America. In , on the 50th anniversary of this song, the Major League Baseball, Inc.

In , coupons were included in the boxes which could be redeemed for prizes. In , they became registered trademark logos. There is a Nebraska legend that the popcorn ball is actually a product of the Nebraska weather. There was a mile strip of scorching sunshine and then a mile strip of rain. On one farm, there were both kinds of weather. The sun shone on this cornfield until the corn began to pop, while the rain washed the syrup out of the sugarcane. The field was on a hill and the cornfield was in a valley.

The syrup flowed down the hill into the popped corn and rolled it into great balls with some of them hundreds of feet high and looked like big tennis balls at a distance. You never see any of them now because the grasshoppers ate them all up in one day on July 21, Click here to cancel reply. Pin Share History and Legends of Popcorn, Cracker Jacks and Popcorn Balls There is a legend that old-timers tell of one particular summer when it got so hot that the corn in the fields stared popping right off the stalks.

Frito-Lay Press Releases. Story of Jolly Time Popcorn. Tarcher, Wyandot Popcorn Museum. Related Recipes.