Popcorn...anyone know how that came about and who figured out you can get popcorn from heating up the kernels?

Answer 1

Prehistory - The oldest ears of popcorn ever found were discovered in the Bat Cave (a site known to have been occupied by cave dwellers practicing primitive agriculture three thousand years ago) of west central New Mexico in 1948 and 1950 by anthropologist Herbert Dick and botanist Earle Smith, Harvard graduate students. They discovered layers of trash, garbage, and excrement, which had accumulated over two thousand years. In the trash were 766 specimens of shelled cobs, 125 loose kernels, 8 pieces of husks, 10 of leaf sheath, and 5 of tassels and tassel fragments. The deeper they dug, the smaller and more primitive the cobs, until they reached bottom and found tiny cobs of popcorn in which each kernel was enclosed in its own husk. Among those prehistoric kernels, they found six that were partly or completely popped. These grains have been so well preserved that they would still pop. In fact, they took a few unpopped kernels and dropped them into a little hot oil to prove that they could still pop. They have been carbon dated to be about 5,600 years old.

4th Century A.D. - A Zapotec funeral urn found in Mexico and dating about 300 A.D. depicts a Maize god with symbols representing primitive popcorn in his headdress. Also ancient popcorn poppers (shallow vessels with a hole on the top and a single handle) have been found on the north coast of Peru and date back to the pre-Inca culture of about 300 A.D.

10th Century - In southwest Utah, a 1,000 year old popped kernel of popcorn was found in a dry cave inhabited by predecessors of the Pueblo Indian.

16th Century - Hernando Cortes (1485-1547), Spanish explorer and conqueror of the Aztec Empire of Mexico, got his first sight of popcorn when he invaded Mexico and came into contact with the Aztec people. Popcorn was an important food for the Aztec Indians, who also used popcorn as decoration for ceremonial headdresses, necklaces, and ornaments on statues of their gods.

An early Spanish account by Father Bernardino de Sahagun (1499-1590), Franciscan priest and researcher of the Mexican culture, of a ceremony honoring the Aztec gods who watched over fishermen read:

"They scattered before him parched corn, called momochitl, a kind of corn which bursts when parched and discloses its contents and makes itself look like a very white flower; they said these were hailstones given to the god of water."

17th Century -Early French explorers in the Great Lakes region reported that the Iroquois Indians popped popcorn in a pottery vessel with heated sand and used it to make popcorn soup, among other things.

Some historians suggest, but this theory has never been proved, that when the early English colonists held their first Thanksgiving celebration on October 15, 1621, an Indian named Quadequina brought an offering for the feast - a great deerskin bag of popped corn. The Pilgrims enjoyed this treat, which was to become a unique part of the American way of life. The early colonists called it popped corn, parching corn, and rice corn. Native Americans would bring popcorn snack to meetings with the English colonists as a token of goodwill during peace negotiations.

In American Indian folklore, some tribes were said to believe that quiet contented spirits lived inside of each popcorn kernel. When their houses were heated, the spirits would become angrier and angrier, shaking the kernels until the heat became unbearable, at which point the spirits would burst out of their homes and into the air in a disgruntled puff of steam.

Colonial housewives served popcorn with sugar and cream for breakfast (the first "puffed" breakfast cereal). Some colonists popped corn using a cylinder of thin sheet-iron that revolved on an axle in front of the fireplace like a squirrel cage.








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. The cows and pigs thought it was a snow blizzard and they lay down and froze to death.

Answer 2

early 1800s. whole cobs were place by the heat to pop till someone figured it out to thake the kernals off the cob and heat them in a pot

Answer 3

nicely as incredibly everyone already mentioned, confident. I certainly have the munchies and now you have made me desire popcorn with butter meltd on it and the white cheese powder stuff from the kraft mac and cheese white cheddar. lol. thank you

Answer 4

I would think the first person to overcook the corn discovered that.

Answer 5

It was the Native Americans.

I don't know how they figured it out.