in the kitchen WITH
TORI AVEY
SWEET POPCORN BALLS
Tori Avey is an awardwinning food writer, recipe developer, and the creator of the popular cooking website toriavey.com. She writes about food history for PBS Food and Parade. com. Follow Tori on Facebook by searching for “Tori Avey” and on Twitter: @toriavey.
Ever wondered what makes popcorn “pop”? The secret is in the kernel. Popcorn comes from a certain variety of maize that produces small kernels with a hard outer shell. These kernels cannot be chewed without a good chance of cracking your tooth. To get to the fluffy edible part, you have to heat the kernel, which turns the moisture contained inside the kernel into steam. When the outer shell has reached its pressure point, it bursts, releasing the soft inner flake and creating what we recognize as popcorn. The popcorn variety of maize was domesticated by pre-Columbian indigenous peoples by 5000 B.C.E. It is a small and harder form of flint corn, most commonly found in white or yellow kernels. The stalks produce several ears at a time, though they are smaller and yield less corn than other maize varieties. The “pop” is not limited exclusively to this type of maize, but the flake of other types is smaller by comparison. Popcorn likely arrived in the American Southwest more than 2,500 years ago but was not found growing east of the Mississippi until the early 1800s due to botanical and environmental factors. Today, the Midwest is famous for its “Corn Belt,” but prior to the introduction of the steel plow during the 19th century, soil conditions in that region were not suitable for growing corn. Evidence of popcorn’s first “pop” did not appear until the 1820s, when it was sold throughout the eastern United States under the names Pearl or Nonpareil. Its popularity quickly began to spread throughout the South and by the 1840s popcorn had started to gain a foothold in America. Prestigious literary magazines like New York’s Knickerbocker and the Yale Literary Magazine began referencing popcorn. By 1848, the word “popcorn” was included in John Russell Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms. One of the earliest recipes for popping corn came from Daniel Browne during the 1840s. His method required one to “Take a grill, a half pint, or more of Valparaiso or Pop Corn, and put in a frying-pan, slightly
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buttered, or rubbed with lard. Hold the pan over a fire so as to constantly stir or shake the corn within, and in a few minutes each kernel will pop, or turn inside out.” He adds that salt or sugar can be added while the popcorn is still hot. The problem with this method was that butter tended to burn before reaching a high enough temperature and lard produced popcorn that was soaked with grease. It wasn’t until the second half of the 19th century that an efficient method for popping corn was developed. These newly invented “poppers” were made from boxes of tight wire gauze attached to a long handle; they were meant to be held above an open flame. Poppers offered several benefits, including the ability to contain the popped kernels while also keeping hands away from an exposed flame. Throughout the years, many improvements were made to the original popper prototype, which made the snack even more accessible to the masses. With Halloween just around the corner, it seemed fitting to share a vintage popcorn treat. Popcorn balls were a fixture at Halloween parties during the 1950s, a time when trick-or-treaters regularly enjoyed homemade treats rather than packaged, store-bought candies. The first recipe for popcorn balls was published in 1861 in E.F. Haskell’s “Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia;” by the turn of the century many cookbooks included popcorn ball recipes. The following Sweet Popcorn Balls recipe is adapted from an adorable vintage 1940s cookbook called the “Children’s Picture Cook Book” by Margaret Gossett and Elizabeth Dauber. It’s written for kids in the kitchen, with every recipe and cooking step illustrated. I’ve provided the old-fashioned stovetop method for popping the corn, but you can feel free to use an air popper or another popping device if you have one. Make sure you have a candy thermometer on hand, the syrup temperature is very important here. Otherwise it’s a really straightforward recipe. It’s also a fun one, especially at this time of year. Kids will enjoy helping