Popcorn’s pretty great, isn’t it? I mean, really, who doesn’t enjoy a bowl now and then? Nobody I want to be friends with, that’s for sure. One of my personal faves is the salty, sweet popcorn known as kettle corn. It’s one of the most popular types of popcorn around today, so I got to wondering about how the craze started. Its history stretches back to the 1700s when European farmers came over to the New World and cooked corn in huge iron kettles to make what we now know as popcorn.
The heat from the kettle caused the corn to cook rapidly and a sweetener like honey, molasses or sugar was added to the mix. Legend has it (Yes, popcorn legend. What? It’s totally a thing. Don’t look at me like that.) that the practice was abandoned for a while at some point thereafter and wasn’t picked up again until a farmer, desperate to avoid having to giving up his farm to the bank, brought kettle corn back by selling it at local events in the early 1800s.
And so there you have it. Today we scoff down over a billion pounds of this salty and sweet popcorn every single year. Hey, how else are we supposed to enjoy a good movie (or a bad one)?
Sweet and Savory Popcorn Party Ideas 