Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, A production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Tracy, did you know
Speaker 1: that I'm kind of obsessed with popcorn? No? I did
Speaker 1: not know this. I love popcorn. I love it too,
Speaker 1: like I love love it. We talked about it behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. Yeah, let's do I you know, late lately,
Speaker 1: on and off the last couple of years, I've been
Speaker 1: looking at whether or not I should buy a glazing
Speaker 1: machine to do like, oh fancy one theme park style
Speaker 1: popcorn fun. I always back off of it and in
Speaker 1: a moment of like, you don't need that. Part of
Speaker 1: it is because there's only one person in my house
Speaker 1: that eats popcorn. But the bottom line is that this
Speaker 1: and a couple other things have made me think about
Speaker 1: like popcorn. And we'll talk about it in the course
Speaker 1: of the episode. But a lot of like what we
Speaker 1: know about popcorn words, early phases, or what gets repeated,
Speaker 1: a lot is flat out false, right, so, at least
Speaker 1: in modern culture. So I thought it would be fun
Speaker 1: to pick apart popcorn through the ages, because it goes
Speaker 1: back very far but was not necessarily as prevalent in
Speaker 1: place as we have been told it was. And then
Speaker 1: we'll talk about how it has become a huge industry. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had not thought about the economics of why it
Speaker 1: is such a profit industry, but now I have, so
Speaker 1: we'll talk about all of that today. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: use of the word corn in historical contexts, at least
Speaker 1: some of the time, it can be a little deceiving
Speaker 1: because corn is a word that has historically been used
Speaker 1: more generally to describe all kinds of grain crops. So
Speaker 1: today corn, I want to say the big lump with knobs,
Speaker 1: but that's from so long ago on the Internet, it's
Speaker 1: already a very dated reference, just the thing you know
Speaker 1: with ears. But corn in translation of the Bible, as
Speaker 1: having been in Egypt, that was probably barley. Similarly, in Britain,
Speaker 1: the word corn has been used to refer to crops
Speaker 1: that could include both wheat and oats. So if you're
Speaker 1: reading really old historical documents and there's a reference to corn,
Speaker 1: it might not mean the relative of grass specifically that
Speaker 1: we call corn today. Yes, because corn is grass. Corn
Speaker 1: is grass. As for another reference that cuts a little deep,
Speaker 1: but it's fine. I feel like many of our listeners
Speaker 1: will get it. The corn that we think of today
Speaker 1: using that word is a native plant species to the
Speaker 1: Americas that, as Tracy said, related to grass and popping
Speaker 1: corn is a specific type of maize, which is different
Speaker 1: from the corn you would eat, of course, as corn
Speaker 1: on the cob or in corn dishes where you eat
Speaker 1: the intact popping corn has a husk that is four
Speaker 1: times thicker than those other varieties, and popcorn predates the
Speaker 1: other corn types, although they are all the same species,
Speaker 1: so you could have flour corn, podcorn, sweetcorn, dent corn,
Speaker 1: and flint corn. They're all very close genetic matches to popcorn,
Speaker 1: but slightly different that were developed over time as crops
Speaker 1: for their edibility, and according to Andrew Smith in his
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine book Popped Culture quote, by the time
Speaker 1: Europeans encountered the New World in the late fifteenth century,
Speaker 1: maze was already a domesticated plant that did not grow
Speaker 1: in the wild. Without human cultivation, maze did not survive yees. So,
Speaker 1: just to recap maze one of the many many plants
Speaker 1: native to the Americas cultivated by indigenous people now enjoyed
Speaker 1: world worldwide. Yes, the science of how corn pops really
Speaker 1: pretty simple. That thick wall of the kernel encases a
Speaker 1: little pocket of starch and moisture, and when the corn
Speaker 1: is heated up, that moisture inside causes the starch to liquefy.
Speaker 1: Just as boiling water expands, so does that liquefied starch,
Speaker 1: and it gets that builds up enough pressure to break
Speaker 1: that outer shell, rapidly expanding and re solidifying into the
Speaker 1: fluffy white popcorn that we're familiar with today. When popcorn
Speaker 1: is grown, every step of the process is designed to
Speaker 1: ensure that you get that fluffy, popped finish. It is
Speaker 1: cured on the stalk and then dried until it reaches
Speaker 1: fourteen percent moisture for a long time. The oldest example
Speaker 1: of popcorn ever found was estimated to be four thousand
Speaker 1: years old. And these are small ears that were found
Speaker 1: in the bat cave of Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen forties and early nineteen fifties. And
Speaker 1: we say these are small ears, we're talking about two
Speaker 1: inches long as the largest of the collected specimens. The
Speaker 1: smallest was reported as smaller than a penny, even today,
Speaker 1: if you grow popcorn, those ears are smaller than the
Speaker 1: other kinds of corn we've talked about, but not quite
Speaker 1: this tiny, So in any case, very dissimilar from the
Speaker 1: ears of corn that you might see today. But then
Speaker 1: in twenty ten, far older samples of popcorn were found
Speaker 1: in Peru, and these were dated to six thy seven
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, and they're really interesting because in that
Speaker 1: case the popcorn appears to have been popped while still
Speaker 1: on the cob, not from separated kernels. Delores Piperno, who
Speaker 1: at the time was Curator of New World Archaeology at
Speaker 1: the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Co authored a paper on these samples that was published
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. It was titled pre Ceramic Maize from
Speaker 1: Paradonis and Juacapria to Peru. One in interesting conclusion in
Speaker 1: this paper was the statement quote, given the scarcity and
Speaker 1: discontinuous stratigraphic presence of maize macro fossils and microfossils at
Speaker 1: Paradonis and Juaca Prieta and at other pre ceramic sites
Speaker 1: in the region, we infer that this crop, both its
Speaker 1: popcorn and flowery forms, was not a primary food staple
Speaker 1: in the local diet before about forty five hundred to
Speaker 1: forty two hundred CALBP. So, just in case folks aren't
Speaker 1: familiar with that terminology, BP is before the present and
Speaker 1: calb P is calibrated before the present. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: type of year dating that you'll see used in a
Speaker 1: lot of archaeological papers. But although popcorn wasn't, according to
Speaker 1: that paper, a particularly major part of the agriculture of Peru,
Speaker 1: it is now believed that popcorn was being actively cultivated
Speaker 1: by people of the Americas in other places as far
Speaker 1: back as nine thousand years ago. Paperno gave a statement
Speaker 1: in the press when this whole article was published and
Speaker 1: became very popular for a minute, that it was cultivated
Speaker 1: from a wild grass known as tiacinde. People that couldn't
Speaker 1: grow it likely traded for it. This earlier version of
Speaker 1: popcorn was also likely closer to what's called parched corn today,
Speaker 1: so in some cases it wasn't popping exactly, but it
Speaker 1: was being used in a way that it was dry heated,
Speaker 1: so it would puff up slightly and become like a
Speaker 1: crunchy thing. The Aztec culture is often invoked in popcorn
Speaker 1: discussion and for good reason. Popcorn was used as food
Speaker 1: and also as part of ceremonial practices. When conquistador Hernan
Speaker 1: Cortes first came in contact with the Aztecs, which as
Speaker 1: we know, would ultimately lead to the culture's destruction, he
Speaker 1: became the first European to see popcorn and noted its
Speaker 1: use for eating, as well as being strung on garlands
Speaker 1: that were used as jewelry and headdresses and as decoration.
Speaker 1: The automatopoetic word used by the Aztecs to represent the
Speaker 1: sound of the corn popping was totapoka. Popcorn was also
Speaker 1: closely associated with the Aztec ring god Toscato. A Franciscan
Speaker 1: friar named Bernardino de Sahagun, who traveled to the Americas
Speaker 1: in the fifteen twenties to convert the indigenous people there,
Speaker 1: wrote of popcorn quote, they scattered parched corn called momahito,
Speaker 1: a kind of corn which bursts when parched and discloses
Speaker 1: its contents and makes itself look like a very white flower.
Speaker 1: They said these were hailstones given to the god of water.
Speaker 1: Now that's an interesting quote because some translations of Sahagun's
Speaker 1: words in this passage omit that whole reference to the
Speaker 1: god of water, so it's not sure if a translator
Speaker 1: added it later. Some translations described the corn grains instead
Speaker 1: as simply being like scattered dice, and there's no mention
Speaker 1: of a deity. Sahagoon made the effort to learn and
Speaker 1: understand the Nahua language that he encountered, and to work
Speaker 1: with members of the Aztec culture and gathering information for
Speaker 1: his book General History of the Things of New Spain.
Speaker 1: Jesuit missionary Bernabe Cobo, who visited Peru in the early
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds, also wrote of the practice of eating popcorn there. Quote,
Speaker 1: they toast a certain kind of corn until it bursts.
Speaker 1: That corn, which was used in confection, was called pisancaia.
Speaker 1: The Spanish naturalist Felipe de Azara described a grain he
Speaker 1: encountered in the Americas in the late seventeen hundreds this way.
Speaker 1: Quote it is boiled in fat or oil, the grains
Speaker 1: burst without becoming detached, and their results of superb bouquet,
Speaker 1: fit to adorn a lady's hair at night without anyone
Speaker 1: knowing what it was. I have often eaten these burst
Speaker 1: grains and found them very good. So that's obviously an
Speaker 1: example of them being popped on the cob. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons that popcorn became a staple in so many
Speaker 1: American cultures over time is its longevity. Unpopped kernels or
Speaker 1: dried cobs of them keep for a very very long time,
Speaker 1: so they can travel and store really easily. As evidence
Speaker 1: of that longevity, botanist Thomas Harper good Speed, founder of
Speaker 1: the Botanical Gardens at University of California, was given a
Speaker 1: gift by a colleague from Chile in the late nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: It was pre Inca popcorn, and good Speed's curiosity about
Speaker 1: them eventually got the better of him, and he tried
Speaker 1: popping them. In nineteen forty one, he published a book
Speaker 1: titled Plant Hunters in the Andes, and he shared the results,
Speaker 1: writing quote, one evening at home in Berkeley, it occurred
Speaker 1: to me to try an experiment with my kernels of
Speaker 1: pre inca popcorn. I placed a few on a pie
Speaker 1: tin and heated them on the electric stove. Much to
Speaker 1: my surprise, that corn, which had been gathered nearly a
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, popped as readily as did last year's
Speaker 1: crop that had come in a box from the shelves
Speaker 1: of the neighborhood cash and carry store. I'm curious how
Speaker 1: he knew that it was pre inca popcorn, right, he's
Speaker 1: taking that that person's word for it is yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: that's I had questions. And of course these travelers from
Speaker 1: Europe brought maize back home with them. Spain and Italy
Speaker 1: were the first places it was introduced, and then it
Speaker 1: made its way to Turkey. But for a long time
Speaker 1: it was used to feed animals and not humans. There
Speaker 1: were very few instances of anyone in Europe trying to
Speaker 1: pop it. When it got to Asia, also through Spanish colonists,
Speaker 1: it was adopted more readily as a food for people,
Speaker 1: including in its popped form. Yeah. I saw one mention
Speaker 1: of like this one place in Romania that there may
Speaker 1: be evidence that it had been popped at one point.
Speaker 1: And of course, obviously people eventually did adopt maize and
Speaker 1: maize products into their stuff. That's why we have things
Speaker 1: like polenta, but not really into it initially. While you
Speaker 1: have probably heard that popcorn was served at the first
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving in Plymouth Colony as belooney, there is no evidence
Speaker 1: to support that claim. There's a lot about the first
Speaker 1: thanksgiving story that there are, and specifically the idea of
Speaker 1: indigenous people giving colonists popcorn comes up in so much
Speaker 1: literature that book I mentioned just a moment ago. It
Speaker 1: goes through like this long list from like everyone from
Speaker 1: like Jane Adams writing about it to I think Thau
Speaker 1: at one point, like all of these people that perpetuated
Speaker 1: this myth and made it part of that like kind
Speaker 1: of fuzzy, more lovable story of how those encounters worked.
Speaker 1: And it's like there's there's literally nothing to support, but
Speaker 1: there was some mention of popcorn from colonists in the
Speaker 1: mid sixteen hundreds. John Winthrop Junior made a report to
Speaker 1: the Royal Society of London in sixteen sixty two that
Speaker 1: included popping corn in his description of the ways that
Speaker 1: Native Americans used maize, noting that they seemed to turn
Speaker 1: inside out and become flower like, but he also described
Speaker 1: the resulting puffs not being eaten as they were the
Speaker 1: way we think of popcorn, but being ground after that
Speaker 1: or beaten into a meal. One hundred years later, Ben
Speaker 1: Franklin described a similar process, with the popping being done
Speaker 1: in a large iron pot with sand and then the
Speaker 1: sand being sifted off before the pounding into the meal step.
Speaker 1: But popcorn among the indigenous people of the East coast
Speaker 1: of North America doesn't really appear to have been a
Speaker 1: very big thing. It was more work to grow and
Speaker 1: harder to use than other forms of maize, so it
Speaker 1: kind of seems like it really didn't get a lot
Speaker 1: of favor. Coming up, we'll talk about reasons. It's tricky
Speaker 1: to figure out exactly how popcorn got a start in
Speaker 1: the United States as a nation different from the Americas
Speaker 1: as a region. We'll take a quick sponsor break before
Speaker 1: we get to that. Because popcorn is inexpensive and as
Speaker 1: we've said, long lasting, it became somewhat of a novelty
Speaker 1: to a lot of folks in the early United States
Speaker 1: once it had formed as a country, although there isn't
Speaker 1: actually a mention of actual popcorn in writing until the
Speaker 1: eighteen thirties, when it was mentioned in a periodical called Cultivator,
Speaker 1: which was geared towards farmers. According to Andrew Smith in
Speaker 1: pop Culture, it's possible that in terms of European descendant
Speaker 1: inhabitants of the US and the eighteen hundreds, the practice
Speaker 1: of popping corn might have even come from Africa. As
Speaker 1: maze made its way across Europe in the fifteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: it also moved south into Africa, but this is purely
Speaker 1: a theory. The way maze spread, which was in some
Speaker 1: cases tied to the slave trade, makes it actually pretty
Speaker 1: hard to know who actually had it and who brought
Speaker 1: the concept of popcorn into the culture of the US.
Speaker 1: And of course there was popcorn in South America well
Speaker 1: before any of this, so it may have just moved north.
Speaker 1: But there's no real chain of evidence to clearly identify
Speaker 1: how white men started popping popcorn rather than parching and
Speaker 1: grinding it. The ways people popped popcorn in its early
Speaker 1: adoption in the United States could vary a lot. Some
Speaker 1: sound kind of arduous. There was a way similar to
Speaker 1: how it would be done today by a lot of
Speaker 1: folks using fat or oil in a kettle. Another method
Speaker 1: was to toss kernels of popping corn into the hot
Speaker 1: ashes from a fire and then all that give that
Speaker 1: kind of a stir to get the kernels to pop pop.
Speaker 1: That meant that you had to get the popped kernels
Speaker 1: out from the ash to eat it. And I'm just
Speaker 1: not seeing how you don't wind up with a mouthful
Speaker 1: of ash. Yeah, that's a hard pass for me. Another
Speaker 1: approach was a wire box method, where kernels could be
Speaker 1: placed in a wire container that was held over a fire,
Speaker 1: though it may have taken a while to catch on.
Speaker 1: Once popcorn was introduced to the US in its fluffy form,
Speaker 1: it kind of became a fad. Just a decade after
Speaker 1: that reference and cultivator, the word popcorn appeared in Bartlett's
Speaker 1: Dictionary of Americanism, so over a ten year period it
Speaker 1: had gotten really really popular. Soon holidays celebrated in the
Speaker 1: US started to have popcorn associated with them, and kind
Speaker 1: of all holidays, right, like we sometimes think of popcorn
Speaker 1: garlands for Christmas. I don't think a lot of people
Speaker 1: do that, but some still do, or like popcorn balls
Speaker 1: at Halloween. But it also became part of Easter traditions,
Speaker 1: just popcorn, not in its candied forms Halloween traditions, and
Speaker 1: this eventually led to the development of the popcorn ball
Speaker 1: that I just mentioned. So a mass of popcorn held
Speaker 1: together by a sugarcoating not only eaten as a treat,
Speaker 1: but they were also used as decor. In some cases,
Speaker 1: you could even buy molds and gadgets that would help
Speaker 1: shape candy coated popcorn into decorative shapes, so you could
Speaker 1: make a little ornament by this. By the eighteen sixties,
Speaker 1: popcorn recipes started appearing in cookbooks. They often included ways
Speaker 1: to make sweet treats or desserts with it. It wasn't
Speaker 1: so much savory stuff going on at that point. When
Speaker 1: the steel plow was invented in the mid eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: that made growing popcorn even easier, and the crop became
Speaker 1: even more popular. Became easier to cut the stalks which
Speaker 1: were really starty. This is what led to the development
Speaker 1: of the corn belts. It was during the latter half
Speaker 1: of the eighteen hundreds that popcorn was also adopted by
Speaker 1: healthy living advocates. Dietitian Ella Kellogg, the wife of John
Speaker 1: Harvey Kellogg, used popcorn as a breakfast cereal, eating it
Speaker 1: with milk. She thought popcorn should be incorporated as a
Speaker 1: dish at just about any meal. At that point, popcorn
Speaker 1: was readily available in just about every grocery, and it
Speaker 1: was also routinely sold as a treat at sporting events
Speaker 1: and circuses. In eighteen seventy five, Frederick J. Myers of Govington, Kentucky,
Speaker 1: filed a patent for a corn popper that enabled the
Speaker 1: user to keep from burning their hand the handle of
Speaker 1: the device stayed cool to the touch. His improvement in
Speaker 1: corn poppers didn't involve any kind of revolutionary materials or
Speaker 1: thermodynamic tricks. You could just detach the handle while the
Speaker 1: corn was over the heat source and then reattach it
Speaker 1: to pull the poppedcorn out. Ten years after Meyer's patent,
Speaker 1: Charles Creeters enters the story, and he's a significant figure
Speaker 1: in popcorn's US history. Creators owned a candy store, and
Speaker 1: as he sought to expand his offerings, he ordered a
Speaker 1: peanut roaster for his shop so he could sell fresh
Speaker 1: roasted nuts alongside his candy. He didn't actually like the roaster, though,
Speaker 1: and started taking it apart to see if he could
Speaker 1: improve on it somehow. In the tinkering, Creators expanded his
Speaker 1: vision to invent a new roaster instead of just trying
Speaker 1: to fix the one he purchased and didn't like. Around
Speaker 1: the same time, he realized he could design a machine
Speaker 1: that would pop popcorn as well as roast peanuts, and
Speaker 1: that he could use it to roast coffee beans. As well.
Speaker 1: He ended up building roasters in a variety of sizes
Speaker 1: to fit different needs. Creators used steam to run his machinery,
Speaker 1: which gave consistent power and in the case of the popcorn,
Speaker 1: that meant it would heat evenly and produce consistent batches
Speaker 1: of white, fluffy popcorn. He popped that in a mixture
Speaker 1: of lard and clarified butter. The steam was then used
Speaker 1: to keep the popped popcorn warm. He was able to
Speaker 1: add seasonings before popping, and that would stick to the
Speaker 1: kernels as they exploded. Soon he was selling roasting machines
Speaker 1: to other entrepreneurs instead of selling candy. In eighteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: Creators exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Popular
Speaker 1: Mechanics reported on the popcorn machine on wheels that he
Speaker 1: had on display, which was marketed to grocery stores, initially
Speaker 1: as something that they could move in or out of
Speaker 1: the building as proprietors wished. According to that write up
Speaker 1: in Popular Mechanics quote, this machine was designed with the
Speaker 1: idea of moving it about to any location where the
Speaker 1: operator would be likely to do a good business. The apparatus,
Speaker 1: which is light and strong and weighing, but four hundred
Speaker 1: or five hundred pounds can be drawn readily by a
Speaker 1: boy or by a small pony to any picnic ground, fair,
Speaker 1: political rally, etc. And to many other places where a
Speaker 1: good business could be done for a day or two.
Speaker 1: After kind of a slow start at the expo where
Speaker 1: he couldn't get people interested, Creators just started making bags
Speaker 1: of popcorn to give away, and then that freebee plus
Speaker 1: the smell of popcorn popping, made the crowd show up.
Speaker 1: He eventually started selling the popcorn, and he made a
Speaker 1: nice sum over the course of the exposition, and the
Speaker 1: success of his popcorn sales also inspired the sales of
Speaker 1: his mobile popcorn machine, which he called the earn More,
Speaker 1: and this launched an entirely new field of mobile food vending.
Speaker 1: While people have sold food on foot for centuries, We've
Speaker 1: talked about it so many times, this was new in
Speaker 1: that the food could be prepared on the spot wherever
Speaker 1: the vendor went. Other manufacturers of nut roasting machines hustled
Speaker 1: to get in on this new popcorn market by making
Speaker 1: poppers similar to creets. The creater's company, by the way,
Speaker 1: still exists today, and it still manufactures concession equipment of
Speaker 1: all kinds. As Creaters was working on his popping machine,
Speaker 1: commercially produced popcorn became available at retail. Up until the
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties, people who made popcorn were usually growing their
Speaker 1: own or getting it in places like farmer's markets, but
Speaker 1: in the eighteen eighties the Albert Dickinson Company started offering
Speaker 1: prepackaged popcorn with the branding names of Big Buster and
Speaker 1: Little Bust. Similarly, other people besides Creators were working to
Speaker 1: innovate in the corn popping arena. One of Creeter's employees,
Speaker 1: C F. Dunbar, left the company to start his own
Speaker 1: popcorn machine business, and he invented a machine that would
Speaker 1: pop the popcorn dry without any oil and then pass
Speaker 1: it through an automated butter dispenser. The first patent for
Speaker 1: a machine that would coat popcorn with a sugar glaze
Speaker 1: to keep each popped kernel fresh was filed by a
Speaker 1: man named James Voods. This machine kept those popkernels separate
Speaker 1: from one another, so each one could dry with the
Speaker 1: coating without clumping up into a ball. Frederick and Lewis
Speaker 1: Rookheim of Germany developed a hand held popper that gave
Speaker 1: them the capability to flavor each small batch however they wished.
Speaker 1: The Rookheims are also responsible for introducing an enduring snack brand,
Speaker 1: which is Crackerjack. Crackerjack, in case anybody in our listening
Speaker 1: audience has not had it, combines popcorn and peanuts. The
Speaker 1: molasses coating Crackerjack was such a huge hit that copycat
Speaker 1: recipes started showing up in cookbooks not long after its introduction.
Speaker 1: Once again, because of the low cost, popcorn has endured
Speaker 1: in popularity through various economic downturns. During the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: popcorn became one of the few treats that families could
Speaker 1: still afford. It was kind of an austerity luxury, and
Speaker 1: it also meant that companies that sold popcorn fared better
Speaker 1: during the Great Depression than other industries as popcorn sales
Speaker 1: continued to rise. The depression also led to one of
Speaker 1: the most common associations we have with popcorn, and that's
Speaker 1: being a movie theater snack. This was a cost effective
Speaker 1: way for theater owners to offer some kind of snack
Speaker 1: that overhead was very low. But not all theaters were
Speaker 1: on board with the popcorn boom. Initially, some of them
Speaker 1: feared rightfully as Anybody who has ever left a theater
Speaker 1: at the end of a movie has seen that it
Speaker 1: would make messes. Sometimes people intentionally make bigger messes with it.
Speaker 1: There had also just been a push within the industry
Speaker 1: to create a luxury experience that popcorn and other snacks
Speaker 1: couldn't really match with. But it was so popular already
Speaker 1: as a low cost snack that popcorn sellers started to
Speaker 1: pop up adjacent to theaters, having moved there from sporting
Speaker 1: events and carnivals, so patrons could buy a bag on
Speaker 1: their way into the theater. Eventually, theater owners recognized that
Speaker 1: they were losing a potential revenue stream and started offering
Speaker 1: popcorn in their establishments. In many theaters, this began as
Speaker 1: a rental arrangement with the vendors who had once been outside,
Speaker 1: but overtime theaters introduced their own snack counters and handled
Speaker 1: their own concessions. And of course most won't let you
Speaker 1: bring a whole bag of popcorn in with you unless
Speaker 1: you're really sly, and then they're still take you to
Speaker 1: do it. But you know, I'm not going to comment
Speaker 1: on that anyway. Another world event that further solidified popcorns
Speaker 1: hold on the US the snack market was World War II.
Speaker 1: Sugar was ration in World War Two. It was one
Speaker 1: of the first things to be ration The supply lines
Speaker 1: that the continental US got sugar through were the Philippines, Hawaii,
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, all of which
Speaker 1: were theaters of war, so those supply lines were essentially cut. Additionally,
Speaker 1: what sugar there was was often sent overseas for troops.
Speaker 1: The amount of sugar allowed through rationing was half of
Speaker 1: what most households used on average. Because of the sugar shortage,
Speaker 1: savory popcorn once again had a surge of popularity as
Speaker 1: a snack that was readily available and could be eaten
Speaker 1: without sugar. Reportedly, popcorn consumption in the US tripled in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen forties. Coming up, we'll talk about how
Speaker 1: the invention of television caused popcorn's popularity to dip for
Speaker 1: a little bit. But first we will hear from some
Speaker 1: sponsors that keep the show going. Okay, we will finally
Speaker 1: get to an important historical moment that actually hurt popcorn
Speaker 1: sales at least for a little while, and that's the
Speaker 1: advent of television. As people adopted the new technology at home,
Speaker 1: they made big use of it as an entertainment investment,
Speaker 1: and as a consequence, movie theaters saw a drop in
Speaker 1: ticket sales and thus popcorn sales also declined at this point.
Speaker 1: In this moment, popcorn was usually, though not always, a
Speaker 1: treat that people would eat when they went out. People
Speaker 1: absolutely did continue to make popcorn at home, but that
Speaker 1: was no longer the primary way that most popcorn was consumed.
Speaker 1: But that shift to home entertainment brought about by the
Speaker 1: rise of television shifted things once again for popcorn two,
Speaker 1: because then after a while, they missed that popcorn, and
Speaker 1: it became more and more common again for families to
Speaker 1: make popcorn themselves at home to eat while watching TV.
Speaker 1: Another icon of popcorn's popularity in the US was Orville Reddenbacker.
Speaker 1: Redenbacker was born in Brazil, Indiana, on July sixteenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: oh seven. His parents were corn farmers, and Orville grow
Speaker 1: up to work as a Farm Bureau extension agent. After
Speaker 1: graduating from Purdue University with a degree in agronomy, he
Speaker 1: also opened his own very successful fertilizer company. But popcorn
Speaker 1: had always been his favorite treat, and he had dabbled
Speaker 1: for years with the idea of creating a perfect popping corn.
Speaker 1: By their early nineteen seventies, Reddenbacher was ready to turn
Speaker 1: that hobby into a business. He had developed a strain
Speaker 1: of corn that he felt was absolutely perfect for popping,
Speaker 1: and he partnered with a man named Charlie Bowman to
Speaker 1: launch a company to sell it. And the popcorn was
Speaker 1: originally named as a portmanteau of the two men's names.
Speaker 1: It was called red bow but by the time they
Speaker 1: started selling it it was Orville Reddenbacker Popcorn. To name
Speaker 1: change that he said was based on advice from an
Speaker 1: advertising firm. There's a very funny David Letterman clip of
Speaker 1: him explaining this thing if you ever want to go
Speaker 1: hunting for it online. It was a very small company
Speaker 1: to start. Orville initially was selling the popcorn out of
Speaker 1: his car, but in nineteen seventy two there was a
Speaker 1: huge ad campaign. Orville starred in the commercials right alongside
Speaker 1: his popcorn, and soon he became really well recognized. Although
Speaker 1: he was so associated with the commercials that a lot
Speaker 1: of people thought he was an actor portraying the character
Speaker 1: of Orvile Redbacker, not like actually the man that the
Speaker 1: product was named for. Regardless of whether consumers understood the
Speaker 1: importance of the company's commercial spokesman, Orville Reddenbacker, popcorn became
Speaker 1: a huge seller. And then there was, of course, the
Speaker 1: microwave of it. So the microwave, which we talked about before,
Speaker 1: was the brainchild of Percy, who worked for Raytheon Manufacturing Corporation,
Speaker 1: which producer reported eighty percent of the magnetrons used by
Speaker 1: the Allied forces in World War II. In a meeting
Speaker 1: where the executives of Raytheon were trying to come up
Speaker 1: with ways to keep the company's momentum going in peacetime,
Speaker 1: Spencer suggested that magnetrons might be used to cook food.
Speaker 1: Spencer was really well respected. His work had been what
Speaker 1: enabled Raytheon to produce magnetrons at the scale needed to
Speaker 1: support the war effort, so they took his idea to
Speaker 1: heart and started experimenting with food. We've talked before about
Speaker 1: Spencer and that great story about how he realized that
Speaker 1: microwaves could heat food when a candy bar in his
Speaker 1: pocket melted while he was working in the lab one day.
Speaker 1: Building on that food lore, popcorn didn't just benefit from
Speaker 1: the transition of microwave technology into home use. It was
Speaker 1: also an important part of developing it. Percy Spencer used
Speaker 1: popcorn to test what would happen to it when it
Speaker 1: was exposed to the magne tron. After this whole melting
Speaker 1: candy bar incident, he said to have ended up with
Speaker 1: popped kernels flying all over the lab. Although the development
Speaker 1: of the microwave began in the nineteen forties, it didn't
Speaker 1: really become widely appealing to home consumers for several decades.
Speaker 1: But once that new technology was integrated into a lot
Speaker 1: of people's household lives, manufacturers sought ways to capitalize on it,
Speaker 1: and they started developing popcorn specifically designed for microwave use,
Speaker 1: and microwave popcorn is one of those oddities that was
Speaker 1: embraced by consumers really quickly. Microwave popcorn got a boost
Speaker 1: from the huge surge in fitness enthusiasm in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty healthy treat. It has a low calorie
Speaker 1: and sodium count, and it offers a lot of fiber.
Speaker 1: So just as more and more households were getting microwaves,
Speaker 1: a large portion of those households were interested in popcorn.
Speaker 1: Whether it was just because it's an easy tasty treat
Speaker 1: or because they saw it as healthier than other options.
Speaker 1: I will say that sodium number can really vary depending well.
Speaker 1: Popcorn on its own right, no, very little sodium, very little.
Speaker 1: But if it's covered in salty butter, if with the
Speaker 1: national salt, that changes. In a nineteen eighty seven article
Speaker 1: in The New York Times titled microwave key to popcorn War,
Speaker 1: it was noted that quote five years ago, microwave popcorn
Speaker 1: did not exist. In nineteen eighty three, the first full
Speaker 1: year that microwave popcorn was available nationally, it generated retail
Speaker 1: sales of fifty three million dollars according to Packaged Facts,
Speaker 1: a New York based consumer research concern. Last year, consumers
Speaker 1: popped and estimated two hundred and fifty million dollars worth
Speaker 1: of the stuff according to the Popcorn Institute, a Chicago
Speaker 1: based trade group. Yeah, that's huge growth over a five
Speaker 1: year period. That article also noted that Orville Reddenbacher, who
Speaker 1: at that point was the undisputed king of home use
Speaker 1: popcorn brand for more than a decade, was suddenly in
Speaker 1: competition with companies like Pillsbury, General Mills, and Nabisco, which
Speaker 1: had all launched their own microwave popcorn products. The article
Speaker 1: then quoted then GM of General Mills Donald Newtson as
Speaker 1: saying of their microwave popcorn pop secret quote, this is
Speaker 1: easily the hottest microwave product General Mills has ever introduced.
Speaker 1: The article also mentions cost and that even though microwave
Speaker 1: popcorn costs more than twice as much as regular popcorn,
Speaker 1: consumers seemed to be happy to pay that for the convenience.
Speaker 1: But we should note that though Reddenbacher had competition, and
Speaker 1: that was the whole crux of this article, that brand,
Speaker 1: which was owned by the Beatrice Company in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: had been selling microwave popcorn since nineteen eighty three, and
Speaker 1: it was still the leading brand on the market when
Speaker 1: Orbal Reddenbacher died in nineteen ninety five, his popcorn accounted
Speaker 1: for forty five percent of the market. Citing market experts,
Speaker 1: that article also predicted that a few brands would survive
Speaker 1: and thrive, but all other microwave popcorn makers would fall away.
Speaker 1: This was way off base given the situation at most
Speaker 1: grocery stores these days, where there are dozens of options
Speaker 1: for microwave popcorn and many other products. Also ay off
Speaker 1: base was a quote from Deborah A. Koom who was
Speaker 1: manager of popcorn popper manufacturer West Bend Company. According to
Speaker 1: her quote, microwave popcorn is a fad. It will last
Speaker 1: until people read labels and realize what chemicals microwave manufacturers
Speaker 1: put into their popcorn. Microwave popcorn did lose some market
Speaker 1: share to pre popped popcorn in the early twenty teens,
Speaker 1: but it's still around. It's not a fad. Popcorn is,
Speaker 1: in fact, such an enduring treat that it enabled some
Speaker 1: movie theaters to stay afloat even when no movies were
Speaker 1: showing during the early days of the pandemic. Twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three rate up at Sirius Eats, the co owner of
Speaker 1: a theater in Parkridge, Illinois named Dave Loomos talked about
Speaker 1: his company's use of popcorn to maintain business. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: we had our doors closed and no income coming in.
Speaker 1: We decided to do curb side popcorn pickup to see
Speaker 1: how it would go, and we've been doing that for
Speaker 1: the past couple of weeks and it seems like it's
Speaker 1: well received. That's very smart, in my opinion. I think
Speaker 1: so too. Popcorn once again had a huge surge when
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic began because people wanted to replicate
Speaker 1: movie night at home. Grocery Store popcorn sales ROSA reported
Speaker 1: thirty percent. In twenty twenty one, the global popcorn market
Speaker 1: was estimated to be worth five point two billion dollars.
Speaker 1: It's expected to continue on a growth trajectory into twenty thirty.
Speaker 1: One of the largest drivers today is the ready to
Speaker 1: eat popcorn market and particularly gourmet flavors of pre popped popcorn. Oh, popcorn,
Speaker 1: I love you, mm hmmm ah. I will talk in
Speaker 1: behind the scenes on Friday about popcorn. Yeah, Ada, super will.
Speaker 1: I'm excited popcorn. I have a listener mail from our listener, Trenna.
Speaker 1: tRNA writes, Hi, Tracy and Holly. First, of course, I
Speaker 1: am a longtime listener and fan, but first time emailer.
Speaker 1: I love the podcast and often listen when I'm driving
Speaker 1: for a number of hours, so I get both episodes
Speaker 1: and the behind the scenes all in one swoop. I'm
Speaker 1: finally writing because it seems that all of the stars
Speaker 1: aligned to compel me to say how thankful I am
Speaker 1: for your podcast. As a history major, I loved hearing
Speaker 1: the behind the scenes, so to speak, regarding the famous
Speaker 1: people of our past. So, just after listening to your
Speaker 1: episode on Vinnie Reem, I went to Washington, D C.
Speaker 1: For a friend's birthday. I really wanted to see the statue,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately all of the tours of the Capitol Building
Speaker 1: were sold out. Instead, I spent many an hour touring
Speaker 1: all of the monuments and tributes include Washington Memorial, Lincoln Memorial,
Speaker 1: World War One and two memorials, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam Memorial,
Speaker 1: African American History Museum, which is an amazing museum if
Speaker 1: you've never been. That's my input. Harriet Tubman Museum in Cambridge,
Speaker 1: in many more places. My last tour that I crammed
Speaker 1: in that day I was leaving, but I could not
Speaker 1: leave without seeing Arlington. I took a two hour walking
Speaker 1: tour that included JFK Memorial and his Brothers and Justice Ginsburg,
Speaker 1: Thurgood Marshall, and many more. I was disappointed to not
Speaker 1: see any statue, but our tour guide pointed out a
Speaker 1: grave site and asked anyone if they knew who they were.
Speaker 1: It was Jimmy Doolittle and I was like horsehack dating
Speaker 1: myself here because of course I listened to the episode.
Speaker 1: I took a picture of the tomb to include in
Speaker 1: this email, just to send you thank you so much
Speaker 1: for what you do. I love listening to the funny
Speaker 1: parts of the story and how you both crack up
Speaker 1: at the sillier side of things. So to that end,
Speaker 1: my poor old kiddy died last year after a very
Speaker 1: long life, so I'm including a picture of another funny
Speaker 1: episode from my past background. My husband and I had
Speaker 1: two dogs who were BFFs forever. When the older one,
Speaker 1: Mac died, my poor little miniature Docsin was heartbroken, following
Speaker 1: me everywhere. So I had the bright idea of adopting
Speaker 1: another docs in to keep him company. I found a
Speaker 1: rescue on a website and thought she was adorable. We
Speaker 1: went out to meet her with Winston to see if
Speaker 1: they were compatible. They appeared to get along well, so
Speaker 1: I said we will take her, at which point the
Speaker 1: rescue center told me about her mother. Apparently the two
Speaker 1: were living in a car with a bunch of other
Speaker 1: dogs and they were all rescued and no one had
Speaker 1: come forward for the mother, who she had been with
Speaker 1: her whole life. Yep, you guessed it. I'm a sucker,
Speaker 1: so I said, give me the mom too. I love
Speaker 1: you for this. Well two weeks later, I'm sitting on
Speaker 1: our sofa and the younger one goes crazy, running all
Speaker 1: over and up and down the stairs, pulling down the
Speaker 1: afghans and blankets, and I didn't know what to think about.
Speaker 1: Thirty minutes later, I hear a muling noise. I got
Speaker 1: up to look, and yes, you guessed it, there was
Speaker 1: a puppy on the couch. I called to my husband calmly,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, honey, I have a problem. After back and
Speaker 1: forth about yes, really, there is a puppy on our couch,
Speaker 1: he dove in and helped deliver the rest of the pups.
Speaker 1: Of course, it was a Sunday, so no vets were open.
Speaker 1: In the end, we navigated the delivery of three puppies
Speaker 1: within two days. One of my best friends came over
Speaker 1: and said how cute the puppies were. Then she looked
Speaker 1: at the mom and said, I'll have one of hers.
Speaker 1: I said she's not pregnant, and my friends said, yes,
Speaker 1: she is. Sure enough. My husband took mom to the
Speaker 1: vet the next day, and four puppies were in our future.
Speaker 1: So long story, short, we went from one dog to
Speaker 1: ten dogs in about a month. Here's a picture of
Speaker 1: my miniature docs in with the puppies. Who doesn't love
Speaker 1: a snuggle. Looking forward to seeing you in Indianapolis, Trena. One,
Speaker 1: I love you for taking care of all of these bibbis. Two,
Speaker 1: I love you for adopting a mom. That's always my
Speaker 1: thing on Mother's Day. Adopt the mom. Animals they don't
Speaker 1: get taken in the puppies and kittens always do and
Speaker 1: they often sit in shelters, So hooray for you. Thank
Speaker 1: you for that. And also I have been at a
Speaker 1: puppy delivery and it's a lot of work, and like
Speaker 1: my hat is off to you, so thank you so
Speaker 1: much for accidentally segueing us to being able to talk
Speaker 1: about our live show in Indiana. Yeah're going to be
Speaker 1: at the Indiana Historical Society on July nineteenth, so if
Speaker 1: you would like to see stuff you missed in history
Speaker 1: Class live, it is a seven thirty to eight thirty
Speaker 1: PM show at the Eugene and Maryland Glick Indiana History Center.
Speaker 1: It is thirty dollars if you're a member. It's twenty
Speaker 1: dollars if you're only going to the show. There's another
Speaker 1: option for a slightly more expensive ticket which also includes
Speaker 1: a meet and greet, so we would love to see
Speaker 1: you there. If you would like to register for this
Speaker 1: show and come and see us in Indianapolis, we would
Speaker 1: love to see you. You can do that at www
Speaker 1: dot indianahistory dot org slash events and you'll see it
Speaker 1: right there, and we will be there, and Trent and
Speaker 1: I will hug you for taking care of all of
Speaker 1: those dogs, because thank you for doing it. They're so cute.
Speaker 1: This is also the wonderful mystery and surprise sometimes of
Speaker 1: adopting rescue animals from shelters. Different shelters have different levels
Speaker 1: of care they're able to give before adoption. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: get a surprise. One of my previous cats, who is
Speaker 1: no longer with me, was the mom and they had
Speaker 1: found homes for all the babies, and then Villain l
Speaker 1: came to live with me for the next decade ish.
Speaker 1: More than that, she was a cute little shy thing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so thank you. If you want to write to us
Speaker 1: about your adventures in touring historical sites or with animals
Speaker 1: and surprise puppies, which I'm just gazing at this puppy picture,
Speaker 1: It's like a dopamine hit, It's so good, or anything
Speaker 1: else you want to talk about. You can write to
Speaker 1: us at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also find us on social media as missed in History
Speaker 1: And if you would like to subscribe to the podcast
Speaker 1: and you haven't, you can do that on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: app or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stuffy
Speaker 1: and History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.