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Popcorn: Who doesn't love it? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: should know.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: That's right, Popcorn the snack a dish, And I want
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: to shout out listener Sean O'shullman.
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: He came up with this idea, send it along.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: And I'm trying to get better about crediting people when
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: they send great ideas that we use.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Oh that's that's a great New Year's resolution, Chuck.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which reminds me I need to do a pickup
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: for Cliff's notes because I did not credit Mike D
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: of Overland Park, Kansas. Or maybe that'll suffice.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it might. Well I have to ask Mike D.
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: Okay, and he'll you know what he'll say.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: He'll say the mic stance for money and the D
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: is for dime.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Was that exactly what you were going to say?
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: No? But that's that was better? So okay.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we're talking Popcorn Day and Chuck, there's a
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: lot a lot to talk about with popcorn. Who helped
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: us with this?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Was it?
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Anna?
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: This is Anna Green?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Very nice? So if you don't know what popcorn is,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: We'll wait a second. You go ahead and google popcorn
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: and then come back. I'm pretty sure most people know
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: what popcorn is because it's a global sensation. But I
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: have to say I'm quite proud that popcorn is through
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: and through American, and not just the United States version
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: of American, Mexico, Central America, South America, Canada will include Canada.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Sure they love it American in that sense. That is
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: popcorn through and through. Even still today, most of the
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: popcorn in the world comes from the Americas.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: And we should talk a little bit about corn because
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: popcorn is just a variety of corn. There are all
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: kinds of varieties of corn, and popcorn is the everta variety.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: And if you are corn, you have three main things.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: You have a hull.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Maybe they might call it a pair of carp or
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: maybe even the brand. I like calling it the brand
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  Speaker 3: the brand, and inside that hole you've got the germ
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: and the endosperm and popcorn specific hull, that outer shell
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: that has that stuff inside of it. That is the
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: main thing that makes it poppable corn. And that's what
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: makes it different than other kinds of corn because popcorn
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: has a really hard, hard outer shell, much harder than
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: other varieties of corn, and inside that hull there's a
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: much higher ratio of hard starch to soft starch.
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: And all that sounds well and good.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: But a little tidbit I never ever knew until this
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: episode was like, what is making that stuff pop?
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: And it's very simple, right it is.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: It's awesome. It's a little tiny bit of water. Yeah,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Apparently anything less than thirteen percent water inside the popcorn
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  Speaker 2: kernel is not good enough.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: I think you mean the hull, yes, you're right, sorry,
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: or the brand as you like to see the bran.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, brand to me is like mast It's like one
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  Speaker 2: of those homey words. I love it. It's the sweet
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: spot is between thirteen and twenty percent water content inside
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: the brand. And when you heat that, because the brand
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  Speaker 2: is non porous, that that steam that gets generated gets
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: trapped inside. Well, as we all know, when steam expands,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: it really expands, and it expands so much that it blows.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: It blows the popcorn inside out.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that what you're eating, the white styrofoamy deliciousness
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: that you're eating, that is the starch while you're eating
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: that kernel up, I'm sorry, that hole. I guess it's
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: a kernel too, and that water is turning into steam
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: and expanding, the consistency of that starch is changing, becoming
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: more pliable of aka edible, and you're eating that interior
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: starch and you can still you know that that little
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: thing that gets stuck in your teeth, that's the last
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: bit of that hole that has exploded. And like you said, anything,
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  Speaker 3: like when you get that unpopped stuff at the bottom
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  Speaker 3: and you're like, what was your problem? Why didn't you
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: do what you were told?
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  Speaker 2: They said, all right, less than thirteen percent.
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  Speaker 3: More exactly, that's probably the case. It also could be
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: the case where that hole was fractured or something was
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: wrong with that hole.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, something's wrong with that. It ain't right. Yeah, And
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: so you're like, okay, well, why doesn't rice pop suckers?
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Why doesn't Why isn't wheat pop smart guys? Well, it
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: turns out it's because they have porous holes, so steam
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  Speaker 2: will come out of them. It won't build up pressure
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  Speaker 2: inside like it does popcorns. So popcorn is a very unique, darling,
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  Speaker 2: peculiar little thing that everybody loves. Yeah, no, don't don't
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  Speaker 2: even come at us like you don't love popcorn. Everyone
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  Speaker 2: loves popcorn.
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  Speaker 3: Sorry, agreed, And we're going to get some some young
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: yuckers that are gonna say they hate popcorn.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: I just don't get it. I don't get it either.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: There's a guy named Andrew Smith and he's a popcorn
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: aficionado and in popped culture. Pretty great name for something
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: on the internet. He has gone through and shared popcorn
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  Speaker 3: varieties that were sold in the early I guess twentieth century,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: between nineteen oh one and nineteen oh two. He said,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: some of these may be different names, you know, like
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: the same thing that was named different by whoever was
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: growing it. But they had some pretty fun names like
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: tom thumb popcorn or tattooed Yankee. But popcorn wasn't sold
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  Speaker 3: commercially at scale like that. Maybe a couple of varieties were,
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: but there seemed to be a lot more sort of
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  Speaker 3: local varieties that people could grow and just sell kind
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: of locally. But again, it's not branded or anything at
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: this point. You're just buying it by like the scoop
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  Speaker 3: or the bag.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was all popcorn. It was just a generic
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  Speaker 2: term for popcorn. It's all called popcorn. But I think
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  Speaker 2: in the mid nineteenth century. Later nineteenth century, the company
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: started to come along and basically branded their own version.
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  Speaker 2: And there was even a mascot in the eighteen seventies
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  Speaker 2: called Kernel Pop Love that one. I couldn't find a
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: picture of them, could you.
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  Speaker 4: No, But that's because I did not look.
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  Speaker 2: The same here. And there's actually a popcorn company from
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  Speaker 2: not too far after Colonel Pop was developed nineteen fourteen,
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  Speaker 2: called the American Popcorn Company. And they're the people who
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: make jolly Time popcorn. And if you've never made jolly
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  Speaker 2: Time popcorn, you should just do it. Just go buy
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: one of those little foil things that has all the
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: stuff you need to pop the corn in it. And
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  Speaker 2: as it pops, like the foil expands. It's just such
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: a great little thing. Word of advice, though I learned
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: this the hard way. Don't do it on a ceramic
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: cook top. It's really really bad for the ceramic cook top.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Oh wait, I'm talking about Jiffy pop. Jolly Time comes.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: In the bangs. Yeah, yeah, still you should try and
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: Jiffy pop I get.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, before we go further, I'm curious of how
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: you how do you pop your popcorn?
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't very much. We have like a
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: stir crazy I don't remember who makes it, but it's
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: like the the big like black, heavy bottom with like
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: a thing that spins around slowly on it so that
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: it stirs your your popcorn apparently in a crazy way,
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  Speaker 2: and then it pop pop pops, but transparent. Well there's
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: a hamster that runs the whole thing. I guess technically
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: it's mechanical energy, but there's like a transparent yellow bowl
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  Speaker 2: that keeps it from popping out, and then you just
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: turn it upside down, okay, yeah, and then you have
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  Speaker 2: your bowl of popcorn right there.
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  Speaker 3: So you got the old school sort of can't you
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  Speaker 3: plug it in and it turns the little stirring thing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, But weirdly we got it in the last few years.
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  Speaker 2: We tried air popping for a while.
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  Speaker 4: And that's just like punishment garbage.
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  Speaker 3: I use a whirlypop that is the stovetop thing that
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: you put, you know, on your stove. I have a
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: gas stove, so it's cooking with gas and you hand
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  Speaker 3: crank that thing and it stirs it around.
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  Speaker 4: You need a hamster, I do.
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  Speaker 3: Those are like seventy bucks, so you know, not cheap
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  Speaker 3: but not expensive. There's also more expensive brands like that
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  Speaker 3: that are like a couple of hundred bucks, like the Popsmith.
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  Speaker 3: But the whole point is you're cooking it on your
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: stovetop and you're turning it yourself, right, And that's how
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  Speaker 3: I like to do it. As the the you know
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: that yellow oil that's got the butter flavor in it,
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  Speaker 3: and I just do a little bit of that popcorn
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  Speaker 3: salt because I love salt. But that stuff is super
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  Speaker 3: salty and goes a long way I saw.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. There's a specific kind called Flavacall and
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  Speaker 2: that's what the movie theaters use, and it's designed to
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  Speaker 2: dissolve in oil and get in every part of a
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: popcorn pop popcorn. I can't remember, I ah the name
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: for what? Oh flake, that's what a pop popcorn is called.
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  Speaker 2: Did you know that?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: I did not know that. Well at any rate. It's
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: meant to get in every crevice and nook and cranny
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  Speaker 2: of a popped flake, and yeah, I would guess it
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  Speaker 2: doesn't take very much of that stuff.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and we don't pop popcorn a lot, like we
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  Speaker 3: should do it for every single family movie night because
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  Speaker 3: there's really no reason not to. But uh, you know,
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  Speaker 3: Ruby loves it, the family loves it. So I'm gonna
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: start popping more popcorn. But let's go back.
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  Speaker 2: Wait, I'm not quite done. I should say, like, more
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  Speaker 2: often than not, it's microwave popcorn that.
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  Speaker 4: We Sorry, I'm judging you.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all right. I can take it.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: I just don't like it.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: What about smart food? I like that stuff too.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Bag popcorn that's a whole other game, but a
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  Speaker 4: huge industry.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Remember it used to be on our what do they
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: call it, a rider?
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you had to give us smart pop popcorn
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  Speaker 2: backstage at our shows.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's good snack, calorie filling for sure, and cheesy,
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: pleasing to the tongue.
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  Speaker 3: Let's go back a little bit though, and talk about cultivation,
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  Speaker 3: because if you look at you know, indigenous Americans before
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Europeans came along and wrecked everything, they were farming popcorn
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: in South and Central America, mainly in North America where
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: it was farmed it was in the southwest of the
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: United States and Mexico, or I guess most of that
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: was Mexico at the time. But when non indigenous Americans,
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: you know, white Europeans, came here, they started farming popcorn
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: in New England was a surprise.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Through most of the nineteenth century that was sort of
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: the center of popcorn, I guess, growing and manufacturing, until
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: eventually it moved to the Midwest in Chicago became the
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: hub of popcorn.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, which explains why Chicago is a caramel corn town.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: And despite the fact that people in Chicago won't admit it,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Chicago is a caramel corn town.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: But most of the popcorn these days that comes for
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: the United States, well not most, but twenty five percent
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  Speaker 3: of the popcorn popped in the US is grown in Nebraska,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: it should be no surprise, but also grown in places
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: like Kansas, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah apparently also Brazil and Argentina grow a lot of
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: it too.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, so chuck. A big question is whether popcorn is healthy,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: and the answer is the resounding yes. If you just
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: air pop popcorn and only eat popcorn undressed in anything
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: and not cooked in oil.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: That's right. But what kind of serial killer does that? Yeah,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: it is.
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  Speaker 3: It's it's low in calorie. Like I said, it's a
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: really good source of fiber. It's one hundred percent whole grain,
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: and if you eat one serving as three cups of poppedcorn.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: If you eat three cups of popcorn, that's about fifteen
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: percent of your daily recommended fiber intake. So if you
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: double that, you're getting thirty percent.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I saw so I was like, there's got to be
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: something wrong with popcorn. I searched Dark side of popcorn,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: and the best I could come up with is that
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: it's there's enough fiber in it that if you have
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: irritable bowel syndrome, you need to be careful of your
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: popcorn intake. That's the worst thing anyone has to say
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: about popcorn.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you can also get about three grams of protein
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: preserving eighteen grams of carbs, one gram of fat. You
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: can get vitamin B six, a e K riboflavon, buyme
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: nicene folate, So.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: It's pretty good for you.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: The nutritional values are going to shift some when you
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: cook it in oil and add toppings and butter flavored stuff,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: but it's not like it destroys the nutritional value.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: The fiber's still in there right.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, it just makes it less healthy. You know,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: you've got all the problems that you have for eating butter,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: and not just eating butter, but liquid butter. Wow, you
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: want to talk about where popcorn came from?
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: Because I do, yes.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: So, like I said, popcorn is indigenous to the Americas,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: and that's because corn is indigenous to the Americas. As
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: far as we can tell, especially if you've read fourteen
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: ninety two, corn was domesticated from the wild Taosenti plant
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: as far back as nine thousand years ago. And the
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: whole thing began in Mexico, and it was such a
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: good idea that it spread throughout Central and South America. Right. Yes,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: popcorn itself is not that much younger, maybe about twenty
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: five hundred years or so.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean sixty seven hundred years ago there was popcorn.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: We just you know, don't know exactly when people started
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: eating it.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Right, but we do have archaeological evidence. I think people
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: have found popcorn buried with people in like South America,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: and I think there was one burial in per maybe
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: where the burial was one thousand years old, but the
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: popcorn was still viable, like you could have popped it.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Imagine eating thousand year old funeral burial popcorn. That would
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: really be something.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, It's probably in some fancy menu somewhere in a
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: fancy restaurant.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, one of those underground restaurants for richies where they
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: eat people.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, where they eat ancient foods and people, yeah, disguised
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: as tasty. There is written documentation. I believe the first
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: written documentation of popcorn comes from when the Europeans came
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: over again to the Americas. There was a missionary in
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: the sixteenth century name Bernardino the Sahagun. He was not
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Italian really, and he claimed Aztecs were wearing popcorn garlands,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: so it was already being used as sort of a decorative.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: And they called it momo cheetle okay.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: And there was a seventeenth century missionary rename I'm not
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: even gonna try. His last name was Kobo, I can
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: say that one. And he saw Pruvian's toasting a quote,
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: a certain kind of corn until it burst, clearly popcorn.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They called it pens and cola.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: Cool, that's all I got, good stuff?
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Uh Yeah, so yes, they were. They were. These guys
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: were witnessing popcorn, and you would think like, oh, okay, well
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: it would immediately become a big deal everywhere. That's not
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: necessarily the case. Despite there being a legend that popcorn
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: was introduced to the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving, that
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: seems to have been a nineteenth century invention, which is
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: actually about the time that popcorn became a favored American
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: snack in the United States.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we should probably take a break and come back
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: and talk about what happened from there.
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: Huh.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: I think that's a great idea, Joe, all right, we'll
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: be right back.
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: I want to learn about a terror sort and call
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: it red actel. How to take a berg fractal gink
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: is Khan.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: That's a little hunt the Lizzie Borderers and all run
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: on sport up Jerry.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: So euro Americans knew of popcorn long before they started
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: eating it. It was just associated with Native Americans. There
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: was a Native American thing. They love their popcorn. But
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century, as far back as the eighteen twenties,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: people selling seeds started selling popcorn. Seeds kind of slowly
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: but surely started to gain traction. Thurreau was a fan.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: He called popcorn a perfect winter flower, which seems like
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: a miss to me. And in eighteen forty eight popcorn
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: showed up in the debut edition of the Dictionary of Americanisms,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: and I was looking through that. Chuck and keep a
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: stiff upper lip was in there too, which I associate
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: one with the UK. But apparently that's American.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: Oh. I never really thought about where that might have
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: come from.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I always thought it was the UK, but I was wrong.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Well, as far as popcorn goes, they used to make
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: it in all kinds of crazy ways early on. Sometimes
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: they would just throw it in a fire and wait
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: for it to pop out, I guess, and eat it
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: with a little little ash on it. Sometimes they would
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: put like an iron like an iron plank on a fire,
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: like you might do steamed oysters or something. If you're
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: sitting by the beach these days and you've got some
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: oysters and you throw a wet towel over those oysters.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: With popcorn, you could just throw those kernels on that
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: hot plate, storm around just like it was on your stovetop,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: and wait for it to pop.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: What's the towel for.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: The towel is for the oysters to steam them?
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, so you cover the oysters with the towel and
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: it keeps the steam inside.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, with a wet to gotcha.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Guy, Yeah, and creates that steam. So, but that's oysters
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: just neither here there.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: So a frying pan obviously is one way you could
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: have popped it early on, but those things were really
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: really heavy to work with. They still are very heavy
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: you work with as far as like holding one and
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: shaking it over a hot fire. And before they had
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: gas s doves, you know, you got to nail the
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: popcorn heating temperature or else you're gonna scorch it and
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: it's not gonna taste great or it's never going to pop.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: So until gas stoves came along, it was just harder.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it wasn't quite as popular, you know. Yeah,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: although you can imagine there were some country women who
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: had like a much bigger, stronger right arm from popping
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: popcorn iron skillet, yeah, dead give away that they were
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: a popcorn fan. Yeah. Finally, in eighteen sixty six, the
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: first patent was issued for a popcorn popper, and it
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: was essentially just like you know those old timey toast makers.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: There's like a it's like an iron rod and it
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: ends in like a mesh basket that you'd put the
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: bread in and toast it. Yeah, something like that. But
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: the mesh was thin enough that the popcorn brand wouldn't
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: fall out when you're popping it, and it would just
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: go pop pop, pop pop. My feet can't stop.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: They still make those for camping, you know, you can
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: still get those.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense. Well, that is the first patented
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: popcorn popper that came on the market, and it was
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I mean still hard to do, but it was much
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: lighter than holding an iron skillet over the fire until
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: your popcorn popped.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, at the very least is lighter and had a
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: much longer handle.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Right, So people were like, okay, I can kind of
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: get into this, and that's when it just started to
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: take off.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So that was eighteen sixty six. Like you said,
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: so in the eighteen seventies, if there was a public event,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: you were going to be able to buy popcorn there.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: Anything that had a concession stand was going to be
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: selling popcorn by that time. And in the eighteen nineties
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: that was a guy named Charles cr Etrs Creditors, I
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: guess in eighteen ninety three. He was a confectionery shop
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: owner in Ohio and he patented, I guess the first
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: sort of mobile portable popcorn machine that he adapted from
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: a peanut roaster of his own design, and all of
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: a sudden you could have like a popcorn stand on
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: a sidewalk, and that became like a thing.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: People were buying popcorn because it was always pretty cheap.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I looked at a picture. This is glorious. It's
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: super got like the big old penny farthing wheels on it.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: It's just I would love to.
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: Buy popcorn from it, you know.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: I penny Thuring farthing is called that, no, because one
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: wheel was relatively the size of a penny to the
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: size of the farthing.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: Oh wow, it's neat.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Is that kind of like that thing? Where like if
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Earth was the size of a pinhead, the sun would
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: be the size of a basketball exactly. So this is
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: the nineteenth century. I think we made it through right, Yeah, yeah, okay,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: So by the twentieth century, Oh no, we haven't quite
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: made it either, because I think we would be remiss
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: to not mention cracker jacks.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, people in the late nineteenth century were into
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: pop like sweet popcorn balls and making popcorn sweet and delicious.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: So it was a dirty lie when you said that
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: we made it out of the nineteenth.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: Century, so dirty. I mean this was eighteen ninety six.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: We were so close.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: So they were eating sweet popcorn in the eighteen forties.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: I think cracker Jack came along in ninety six.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, so another thing that people put popcorn to use for. Again,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: people are starting to get pretty crazy with this. Remember
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: our live episode on the Kellogg Brothers at the bat
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Battle Creek Sanitarium. Before they started serving cereal there, John
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Harvey Kellogg's wife Ella Kellogg, introduced popcorn as a cereal,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: a breakfast cereal with milk and a sweetener, and it
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: was essentially the predecessor to the corn flakes and the
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: brand flakes and everything that came after that. And in
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: my opinion, it was the direct indirect predecessor of corn pops,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: which are still around today. But they came out in
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: nineteen fifty and we're one of my all time favorite cereals.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: Oh okay, I was like, what is corn pops? Yeah? Yeah,
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: corn pops? Yeah.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: She called it popcorn pudding. And there's a historian named
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Andrew Smith that was basically like, popcorn may have been
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: what cereal became if it hadn't have been for other
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: grain manufacturers really getting super aggressive with the breakfast cereal
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: companies being like no, no, no, you want to use
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: brand or.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: Oat or whatever.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, don't be stupid.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Another thing you could use it for back then that
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: I have recently used it for is for flour. You
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: could grind popcorn into flour.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: And I have had this pancake popcorn pancake mix in
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: my house, which is pretty good and way better for
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: you than pancakes.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, it's gluten free, right, yeah, and it
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: is good. You're not just saying that it's pretty up
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: some money on my god, you're gonna like.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: I can't remember the name of the company, unfortunately, but
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: you could. You can find that out pretty easily.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I saw a recipe for popcorn bread and I was like, wow,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: that sounds interesting. And if you look closely, there's like
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: five other types of flour in it. It's popcorn is
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: just part of it. Yeah, I'd still eat it if
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: somebody else made it, you know.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: So we finally made it to the twentieth century. And
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: the reason the twentieth century became such a big deal
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: as far as popcorn goes is because that is when
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: movies started to come out At first they were silent movies,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: and then talkies and movie theaters started to open throughout
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: the United States, and very quickly people were like, popcorn
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and movies go together really well. But it turns out
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: the theater owners were the last ones to figure this out.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: They were like, this stuff is a disaster of a mess.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: It's all over the floor, and it still is, but
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: they deal with it because they make a ton of
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: money selling it. It was the depression coming along where
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: theater owners were like, hey, wait a minute, people don't
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: have a lot of money right now. Popcorn is very,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: very cheap. It's a very affordable snack. So the people
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: were selling popcorn outside at theater that people could bring in,
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: much like my mother did in the nineteen eighties and
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: the first YEP, and they finally were like, hey, maybe
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: we could lease lobby space these popcorn vendors and just
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: have them sell it in here.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: And then someone was like, wait a minute, we're what
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: are we doing. We're doing this all wrong.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: We need to pop and sell this popcorn because the
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: markup is incredible and we're just losing money. So they started,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: you know, it became hand in hand with theaters making
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: profits from the concessions largely popcorn.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean like a lot of money off of popcorn.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: There's a well trod story about a theater owner from
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: during the depression name R. J. McKenna, who found that
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: popcorn was basically keeping his theater afloat. During the depression,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: people didn't really have much money for a movie theater ticket,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: but if they did, they still had money enough for
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: popcorn because it was a cheap snack. So R. J.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: McKenna made the very wise is this decision of lowering
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: his ticket prices below what he would have made a
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: profit on because he made so much money off of
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: popcorn in the concession stands. And I think they the
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: number that's bandied about is two hundred thousand dollars from
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: popcorn alone, which is more than four and a half
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: million dollars today. If that's in nineteen thirty six, dollars.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: From popcorn big big profits.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. And he said a bit of a tradition,
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: as we'll find out that popcorn still big.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: Profits, Yeah, big time.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: During World War Two, there were sugar shortages, so sweet
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: treats were on the wigin I guess, and salty treats rose,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: and popcorn was right at the center of that. Apparently,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Americans were eating three times more popcorn in the nineteen
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: forties than they ever had before, and also in the
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: know the connection to movie theater strengthened during the nineteen forties.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: In nineteen forty five, more than half the popcorn people
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: eating in the United States was in those movie theaters.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's another really great I want to say
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: it's an urban legend, but it actually happened a guy
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: named James Vicari or Vickery, who we've talked about before,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: because he was basically the inventor of subliminal advertising, even
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: though subliminal advertising isn't really a thing. But the reason
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: he ties into this is because he supposedly experimented on
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: people showing frames interlaced within movies that popped up so
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: quickly that you couldn't perceive them, you only perceived them subliminally,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: and they said things like go eat more popcorn, and
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: popcorn sales like tripled. Supposedly, even though the whole thing
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: was a total fraud and the guy made it up,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: it's still worth mentioning.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: If you ask me, he didn't actually even do that,
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: he said later that he made all of that up.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: He never even did the subliminal advertising.
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I saw that too.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was just a fraud from top to bottom.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: Prior to the thirties, most of the popcorn was white corn,
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: but movie theaters moved to the yellow corn variety and
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: it just looked better. It looked buttery, even though it wasn't,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: and people that just became the de facto popcorn that
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: you mainly eat here in the United States, is that
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: yellow corn. I think by nineteen ninety ten percent of
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: commercially soul popcorn was whitecorn.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Let me ask you, do you get buttered popcorn at
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: the movies?
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: I get popcorn, And the AMC that I go to
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: here has the do your own butter. That's not butter,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: by the way, at all. It's buttered flavored oil and stuff.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: But I add, you know, when I was a kid,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: I would just drench it in that stuff.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Now I do not.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Now I do like that flavor, but I'll just do
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: a pretty sparing couple of squirts and shakes.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I never was into it, even as a kid.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: I'd hard to be and I just couldn't get into
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: it for some reason. I think because it just it's
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: the popcorn. And I don't like popcorn wet.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: I love it, but it's just you can't have it
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: drenched in that stuff. Like that's when it's really bad
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: for you. It's when you're just like dumping all that
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: oil on there. But a little bit I like, and
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I'll shake it up and you get you know, I
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: get enough of that flavor just from a dab good.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I respect our differences.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: Here's the thing though, with TV coming along, the popcorn
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: industry was really really worried that like, oh no, like
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: you know, all this popcorn is being eat in movie
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: theaters like we're toast because people aren't gonna go to
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: the movies anymore because of TV. A. That didn't really happen.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: People still went to the movies back then. But what
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: they found out was people loved popping that popcorn at
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: home while they watched TV. And you can also have
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: popcorn ads on TV, and so people with their televisions
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: were eating more popcorn than ever in the nineteen fifties.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know what stuck out to me from
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: that that anecdote, Chuck, is like, that's a an example
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: of early disruption, right yea, where people are like, oh,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: there's a change, there's a huge sea change in the
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: way people do things, So this thing is going to
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: totally go away forever, right, And just since the Internet age,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: we found that just doesn't really happen, Like everything from
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: bookstores to paper to I don't know, seeing people in person,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: we're all just destined to just go away because they've
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: been replaced and it's just not how it goes, which
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: I think is kind of neat to understand because it
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: makes you a little less fearful of change or technology
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: or progress in some ways, I agree, although anyone who's
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: listened to the end of the world knows there's plenty
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: of technology to be scared of. It's got to be selective.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know there are dents and industries for sure,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: like you know, newspapers and magazines. Some have shuddered, but
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: if you believed, you know what the scare tactics, everyone's
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: gonna be like, you're never going to hold a newspaper
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: again after a certain year.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, newspapers, So that one did take a pretty hard hit,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: but it wasn't necessarily because of the Internet. It was
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: because of captains of industry essentially realizing that they could
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: capture journalism if they if they defunded local news, and
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: that's exactly what happened. And I don't remember what episode
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: it was on. There's this there's a YouTube podcast that
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: I love, if you mean introduced it to me or
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: me to it, one of the two called doom Scroll.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: It's hosted by a guy named Joshua Ciderella, and he
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: has the most interesting guests on who are just they
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: just think and talk about their thoughts, and I mean
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: like it's it's all rooted in, you know, like academia
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: or research or something. They're not just riffing or anything
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: like that. But one of them was talking about that
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: that capture and what happened to it, and it's just
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: so strange to think, like, yeah, local newspapers went away,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: but the effect that that had on democracy and on
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: people being informed and just generally caring about stuff that
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: was a huge, huge deal.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: Allegedly, did he eat popcorn while they said this stuff?
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: No? I don't think he did. No, he drinks like
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Lacroix instead.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: All right, well let's take our second break and we'll
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: finish up with popcorn.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: Right after this, I want to learn.
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: About a terrisort and call it fridactyl. How to take
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: a pink is gone? That's a little hunt word up, Jerry.
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: All Right, So we talked a little bit about innovations
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: and how to pop popcorn over the years. That is
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: still evolving. I feel like every few years there's some
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: new sort of weird gadget to pop popcorn with.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: I did not know that, man.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, electricity coming along was a big deal obviously for
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: electric popcorn poppers like you have, well, you and your
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: electric hamster. That is, they had a drawback though, because
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: they were dangerous. The early electric popcorn poppers were like
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: fires waiting to happen, essentially. I think in the late
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: sixties Consumer Bulletin examined all the most popular ones and
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: one of them they determined did not post safety hazards.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the one we have.
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, from nineteen sixty eight.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Although the hamster that runs our popcorn popper did come
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: with a little fire chiefs hat that he wears.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: It's so cute.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that's another interesting thing about popcorn. If you
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: kind of track its trajectory, it just keeps evolving with
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: new stuff. Like anytime something new comes along that you
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: can apply to popcorn. Whether it's movies or TVs or electricity,
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: people apply it to popcorn like it's just this little
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: thing lurking in the background that's been woven into our
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: culture so thoroughly and for so long, you just look
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: right past it and then it trips you as you
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: walk by, and you suddenly recognize how important popcorn is.
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah. TV Time was another one.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: We already mentioned jippy pop, but TV Time was it
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: was just a packaging innovation where they had like sealed
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: popcorn to keep it really fresh, and then also separate
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: kind of like fun dip, separate compartments for seasonings and oil.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: So it was kind of an all in one thing.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: So just even little innovations that aren't mechanical, like packaging
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: innovations like microwave popcorn. I guess we could get too,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: because that really changed the game.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've talked about this guy plenty of times.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: He was kind of like the Hayflick limit for a
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: while and early yeah stuff, you should know. He came
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: up a lot. But a guy named Percy Spencer worked
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: for the Raytheon Company and he was in charge of
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: creating magnetrons. I can't remember what he was doing with them.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: I think they're for like radar or something. And he
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: was standing next to one at some point and he
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: had a chocolate bar. I'm guessing mister goodbar, that's what
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I've always envisioned, Yeah, in his front pocket, like a
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: total nerd, because obviously his shirt was also a short
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: sleeve button down shirt, and the mister goodbar melted in
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: his pocket and he thought, hmm, that's curious.
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: And I was saving this late exactly.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: No, it's just oozy. And then he decided almost immediately
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: to see what happens with popcorn, if you could do
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: the same thing with popcorn, and he did it.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And so like microwaves and popcorn, microwave popcorn grew
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: in lockstep from.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: The very beginning.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: In fact, he even in his nineteen forty six patent
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: for the microwave showed popcorn being popped, so it was
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: always sort of tied together. The first commercial microwaves were
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: very big and expensive and not really for the home.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: They were more for restaurants.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: So once they went to the house, microwave popcorn was
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: right there along with it. In nineteen fifty one, a
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: gentleman named Orville Redenbacher got to together with a guy
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: named Charles Bowman and bought a corn plant in Indiana
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: and experimented with different versions of popcorn varieties and landed
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: on the Red Bow variety, and in nineteen sixty nine
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: started selling Orvile Reddenbacher branded popcorn. And here's what I
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: didn't know. They sold that brand six years later. They
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: sold it in nineteen seventy six, Wow, to hunt wessn Foods.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: But he was just the name and face of it,
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: So he stayed the name and face of it.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. And I've read bow variety, you said, I
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: wonder if they named it after his penchant for red
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: bow ties, or he started wearing red bow ties because
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: of the variety.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: I don't think they named the variety, So I bet
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: you he started wearing that thing because of that.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Thank you, CA. He also just said one more thing
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: about Orvile Riddenbacher. His Eames lounge chair, you know, the
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: one with the ottoman. Yeah, he had one in his
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: office and I think Nebraska, Omaha or something, and it's
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: still out there Orvile red Eames lounge chair from his
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: offices out there somewhere in.
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: The world, like someone owns it.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, I've coveted it ever since I first heard about that.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: Not just a name chair you want Orvile Reddenbocker's Emes chair.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, okay, and I still I don't know why. I've
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: never really stepped back and asked myself, but it's it
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: just got me for some reason.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, you can't be a gen x er and
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: not have a soft spot for Orvile Reddenbacker and the
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: Bartles and James guys.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: No, yeah, they were great. They were wonderful dudes. They
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: were the predecessor of Penn and Teller.
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: I think, yeah, I think you're right.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we talked about microwaves and how microwaves started
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: coming to the home, and microwave popcorn came along quickly
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: after that. I think nineteen eighty one was when you
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: could start buying microwave popcorn. And like I said, it's
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: like a global phenomenon. I think I said it. At
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: the outset. Everybody knows popcorn, whether you love it or not.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: You know about popcorn, you know where to buy it,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: and there's different tastes around the world, as you might
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: i'd imagine, apparently in the United States, the favorite flavors
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: of popcorn are salted, buttered, white cheddar, regular cheddar. So
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: white Cheddar's finally overtaken regular cheddar. This is a big deal.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: And then kettle which is the sweet kind.
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: I like a kettle corn.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: That's all right. I've never been crazy for it, but
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: you know, if somebody put it in my mouth, I
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: wouldn't just spit it out.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna try that sometimes, he would have backstage at
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: our next live show, I'm just gonna stuff some kettle
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: corn in your mouth.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Do you remember when we were filming a We were
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: filming some commercial, I think, and we were eating popcorn
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: at the movies for this part of the commercial, and
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: we did like one take and then chat. Our friend,
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: the director directed the stuff. He's doing a TV show.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: He came over. He's like, just one note, don't mash
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: a handful of popcorn into your mouth all at once.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: And he goes, that's a note for regular life too.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, And so.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: Are you supposed to eat it?
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Like I guess you hold it in
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: one hand and then like daintily pluck a few out
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: with the other hand. That's what I've seen people do
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: in the movies. But I like that, Yeah, I just
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: put my hand in a bag of popcorn or a
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: bullet popcorn, just shove it into my face as best, like, Okay,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: it's not just me, but yeah, Chad made it seem
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: like it.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: Was just me.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Isn't it a little funny that you ever think about
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: that we used to get way more opportunities to do
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: that stuff very much earlier in our career.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah. I think also that we've kind of mellowed
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: out in our quest or our willingness to do stuff
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: We kind of like we said, yeah, we're kind of like.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Hey, we're happy podcasting. We tried so many different things
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: and it's always just come back to podcasting that I
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: think we're just like, yeah, we're happy living this way.
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: I mean I am.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of glad now that I'm older and have
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: a you know, family at home that did not have
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: to travel to do that stuff.
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: It just seems weird.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: Like earlier on, I felt like TV shows were trying
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: to get us on to be like talk show guests
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: or like Toyota do Toyota commercials, Hey come on and
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: talk about the housing crisis for the NBC and like
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: just nobody asks anymore, and it's.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: It's quite wonderful.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is nice.
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I love it.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: Anyway, if you go around the country, you're gonna get
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: some interesting flavors. In Japan, apparently there's a bagged popcorn
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: company called Mike that Fred La owns, and they have
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: of course, like Yuzu salt or.
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: Kishu plum popcorn.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: So you're gonna get some some pretty exciting flavors when
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: you travel around the world, depending what they like there.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know for a fact it's not pronounced Mike,
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: but I failed to ask you me how to pronounce it.
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: So now what is it?
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Me? K, We'll go with Mike, but it's not Mike.
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: Well, of course it's not Mike. But I'm an American, so.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: No, I'm with you. I just wish I knew how
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: to say it, but you probably were right with me.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: What else could it be? Me? K? Nike?
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Kind of yeah, mikey? What else? Chuck? Is there anything
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: else to say about popcorn? Oh? I know one? Apparently
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: people have used popcorn as like a packaging like stuffer.
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: For packing peanuts.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, packing peanuts, but popcorn instead. Since like the nineteen fifties.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: But the problem is is if you use popcorn, it
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: can get kind of gross, especially if you didn't think
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: and you popped it in oil and covered it with
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: butter before you put it in as a packaging material.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: It'll just get gross. It can attract pests and stuff
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: like that. So no one's quite figured it out, but
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: I guess a few years back, twenty twenty one, there's
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: some German researchers who are like hot on the trail
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: of this, using scraps of corn that is like that
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: you get off the floor of like a corn flake
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: factory that they figured out how to pop and it's
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: essentially styrofoam, but it's made of pop corn, And I'm like,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: hurry up with this because styrofoam is one of the
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: worst things humans produce on this entire planet.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, packing peanuts are a nightmare, they really are.
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: So yeah, maybe.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: Popcorn could could help out with that, just a couple
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: of things to finish on. It is an eight hundred
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: and fifty million dollar industry. I guess in the United
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: States alone that bag popcorn, like the smart popping, all
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: that stuff combined is about one point five billion, So
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: it is it is.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: It's popping.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pop it's popping.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: And I'm glad that we held onto the stat because
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: we kind of teased about movie theaters and how much
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: the markup was and how much money they made. The
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: popcorn markup in movie theaters is one two hundred and
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: seventy five percent.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Totally buy that. That actually seems low.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's such a money maker because it's just so
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: cheap to get and you get that machine that runs forever,
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: maybe a little maintenance on it, and then the stuff
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: goes with it, and then you sell it for a
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: gazillion dollars for a bucket. Then you got that butter
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: flavored liquid. This snow good.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: If you do like.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: Real butter on your popcorn at home, I encourage that
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: because real butter is great. But you got to use
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: clarified butter or ghee right because the water and the
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: milk solids are removed in those and that's what's going
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: to make the popcorn soggy. So if you're just melting
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: butter and pouring on your popcorn, you're like, why is
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: my popcorn soggy and gross? That's why I use clarified
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: butter or clarify your own butter and pour it over
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: your popcorn, and it is delicious and not soggy.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Very nice. I think that's it for popcorn.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: Right, I've got nothing else on popcorn. Go forth and
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: eat it. It's good and pretty good for you.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and check out that book by Andrew Smith, pop Culture,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: because it's the definitive toe on popcorn.
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Well, since we talked about Andrew Smith, it's time obviously
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: for listener mail.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: This is from Cecilia S and it's about our music
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: bumpers that we've said before, but it always bears repeating.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: They are made by stuff you should know, listeners. They
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: always have been. Every single one of them are made
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: by listeners and they send them in and it's a
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: really cool, like interactive part of the show for the
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: listenership guys. In terms of your music bumpers, I love
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: how they relate.
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: To the episode subject.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: If it's about an eerie subject, the song reflects that
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: with an eerie tone, or if it's a somber, sad subject,
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: the song reflects that. And there are many other examples.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: This brings to my father, who is a music director
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: at the church we belong to growing up. He would
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: sometimes fill in when the organist was unavailable, and before
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: and after Mass he would softly play hymns but an
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: insert a bit of whimsy. For example, at the start
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: of baseball season he'd play a little take Me out
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: to the ballgame and the style of a hymn, or
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: during football season the university fight song could be heard
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: in the fashion of a solemn liturgical piece. Many other
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: instances of his playfulness. He had a big band combo
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: in college in the nineteen forties and into the seventies,
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: and they could sometimes be heard in church.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: Anyway, love the show.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: You both display such curiosity and knowledge and with wonderful
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: wit and sensitivity when needed.
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: Thank you to whoever is responsible for the music.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: It's not often I would say that about a podcast,
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: so Cecilia, like we said, those are from the listeners.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: But Jerry, our esteemed third leg of our.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Stool, is who ties those so aptly to the subject
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: matter with her own wit and whimsy.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Jerry deserves way more credit for that too, because
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's just like, man, you just knocked it out
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: of the park with that pick.
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: Jerry, she does, and we're never like, uh, who Jerry
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: this is a Halloween one, so make sure to use
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: a scary bumper.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't do that.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: We leave it to Jerry, she does her thing.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And also, huge, huge, heartfelt thanks. I think I
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: just said thanks, but I really meant thanks to every
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: single person who's ever sent in a music bumper, because
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: that's just such a cool, just little subtle part of
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: the show. Ye, all those different, great little pieces of music.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you to everybody who's ever done that. Thank you
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: to everybody who's going to do it in the future,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: even too.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, twelve seconds or less.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: I think we say sixteen. I thought it was twelve
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: somewhere in that neighborhood. Between twelve and sixteen seconds, how
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: about that.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but if you send in one of those thirty
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: second long ones, you'll hear from me saying this is great,
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: but cut it down and we'll use it.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a note for real life too.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Well, if you want to get in touch with us,
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: like Cecilia, you can send us an email too. Send
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: it off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.