Basic Food Storage--Popcorn

I love me some popcorn.  Really, really love it.

Popcorn's been around forever.  Five-thousand-year-old popped kernels were found in cave, in New Mexico, I think.  I have to wonder about that, though.  How is it that a mouse hadn't been able to find it in all this time?  Colonial American mothers served the first puffed breakfast cereal with sugar and cream to their children.  I've never been able to wrap my head around that option.  It just seems wrong to make perfectly good popcorn soggy.  Let me put butter and salt on it and drink my milk separately.

Popcorn skyrocketed in popularity during the Great Depression because it was cheap and filling.  Then movie theater owners recognized its value as a cheap (to make) treat could boost their profits.  And we've been eating lots of it ever since.  Somewhere along the way of doing research for this post, I read a joke about the three most profitable crops.  Heroin, cocaine, and popcorn.  I suppose pot could be thrown in there now. 

Anyway, popcorn is, for me, one of the best prep foods ever.  Why?

For one, it's cheap.  Even Orville Redenbacher's popcorn is relatively inexpensive, and as long as it's stored properly (cool, dry, vacuum-sealed) it's got a very long shelf-life.  And if you mess up on your storage, apparently, it's reversible.  (More on that later.)

Secondly, it's powerful nutrition in a whole grain, even if it's white popcorn.  White rice is bad less nutritious than brown (but it's what we store), white flour is bad much less nutritious than whole wheat (and we still store some), but white popcorn?  Who cares whether it's white or yellow (or blue or red, for that matter)?  It's all good, all high in fiber, and protein, and has lots of vitamins and minerals.  A one-ounce serving (3.5 cups, popped) of popcorn has 110 calories, 7% of the US RDA of protein, 5% iron, 3% niacin, 16% manganese, 10% magnesium and phosphorus, 4% copper, and lesser amounts of lots of other nutrients.  And then keep in mind that we aren't limited to just 3.5 cups.  A lot of us easily eat double that in one sitting. (Niacin, most of which is not nutritionally available to our bodies when popcorn is ground into flour, is released by the high heat of popping.)

What about those days--and you know you're going to have them--when dinner isn't all you hoped it would be?  Cooking outdoors, with unfamiliar equipment, preparing foods in a new way, and even preparing some foods we aren't so familiar with or accustomed to is going to present some challenges at best, and we're going to have some meals that we just don't want to eat.  Or perhaps that some of the family can stomach, but others can't.  Popcorn can remedy that. Of course, make sure what you store is popcorn, not bags of microwave popcorn. To prepare it quickly, melt two tablespoons of coconut oil in a large pan on the stove.  Add 1/2 cup of popcorn and replace the lid.  Give it a shake about every 30 seconds.  When the popping slows or stops, dump popcorn in a bowl and add salt. 

Fourth, popcorn is versatile.  Not only can it be used for breakfast cereal or evening snacking, but the whole kernels can be ground into flour and used in place of some flour in recipes, and popped kernels can be ground and used like oats in some baking.  The reviews for substituting ground popcorn flour for wheat flour in making cornbread are mixed.  People either really love it and will never go back to using regular cornmeal, or they really hate it.  You'll have to try it yourself to see what you and your family prefer.  For us, popcorn is gold (at least, with butter and salt anyway) and shouldn't be used any other way.  It really is a crime against nature to grind perfectly good popcorn into flour.  But for those who don't care about being a criminal and others who want to try substituting popcorn flour in baked goods, the usual recommendation is to use one part popcorn flour to three parts wheat flour.  In making cornbread, the usual substitution is one part popcorn flour to two parts wheat flour.

Finally, popcorn can function as a rudimentary thermometer when you're heating oil.  Cooking over coals or an open flame has its challenges, especially if we forgot to bring the instant read thermometer.  So if you need to know when your oil reaches 350 degrees, put a kernel or two of popcorn in the oil.  When it reaches 350 degrees, it will pop.  Handy, huh?

Properly stored, it is claimed that popcorn has an indefinitely long shelf-life.  And by properly stored, most people mean cool and dry.  Popcorn must have 13.5-14% moisture to pop properly.  If left in the heat for a day, a full percentage point of moisture can be lost.  If your popcorn isn't popping well, try this tip for improving your results:  Put three cups of popcorn in a quart canning jar.  Add a tablespoon of water, replace the lid, and shake well to distribute the water.  If water settles to the bottom of the jar, shake again to re-distribute, and do this every ten minutes.  Let the popcorn sit for two days and then try popping it.  If your popcorn pops well, then treat the rest of that container with water to rehydrate.  If your popcorn improved, but still needs more improvement to be good, then repeat the process.  If it didn't work, use that popcorn for grinding into flour. 

My personal experience demonstrated that for best results, popcorn needs to not only be kept cool and dry, but also vacuum-sealed.  Seven years ago I vacuum-sealed twelve quarts of popcorn in canning jars.  Three of those seals failed, and the popcorn in those jars all popped, but did not pop well. (I wish I'd known about the trick for rejuvenating popcorn then.)  The popcorn in the sealed jars is still great.

How much do you want?  Probably about twenty pounds per person per year.  Popcorn already has everything going for it--price, good nutrition, versatility, and ease of preparation--but at the end of the day, when you know you (or your children) are going to have a hard time sleeping because you're still a little hungry, it's popcorn to the rescue, quickly filling empty bellies for pennies.

Links to related posts:
Overview of basic food storage
Protein
Niacin
Food fatigue  
Magnesium
Coconut oil  

For further reading:
https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/information-center/all-about/all-about-whole-grains/all-about-popcorn
http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2009/10/01/corn-cornmeal/
https://www.popcorn.org/Snack/Preparing-Perfect-Popcorn
https://www.popcorn.org/Facts-Fun/Hot-Issues
https://www.ars.usda.gov/plains-area/gfnd/gfhnrc/docs/news-2012/is-popcorn-a-healthy-snack-it-can-be/
https://www.fitbit.com/foods/Popcorn+Air-popped/12043
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1541-4337.12216
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jsfa.2740540117
https://www.nutritionvalue.org/Snacks%2C_air-popped%2C_popcorn_nutritional_value.html