Growing & Popping Your Own Popcorn

Popcorn and I go back a long way. In the early years the popcorn had to be smothered in butter and salt but as time passed the butter disappeared as did the salt.

I remember Saturday nights when I was young; after supper we'd sit down in the living room to watch TV if it was hockey season then it was Hockey Night in Canada (there were only 6 teams in the NHL then), followed by Gunsmoke.

The popcorn got made after the first period; in those days we made popcorn in one of two ways, this was the pre-microwave era. One was we used Jiffy Pop which I notice is still on the market.

The other method involved a sauce pan with a good lid, some cooking oil and popcorn. You would heat the pot after adding the oil, then ump in some popcorn, cover the pot and shake it. If my memory serves and that is a qualifier worth considering, it turned out okay.

I gave up on both of those many eyars back and we have used a series of hot air popcorn makers to pop our weekly, sometimes more often, popcorn.

I am presently in the market for a better machine. I'll need to pay a bit more than the 20-25 bucks I spent on the machine ( four in total) but we are just not satisfied with the end results, too many unpopped kernels.

You can grow your own popcorn.There are a number of seed companies that will sell you the seeds you need.

I would only do this if I had the land to spare, popcorn is not expensive, we buy a generic brand and have been doing so for years now.

The land we do have is better used to grow flowers, herbs and vegetables, buy hey that is us, if you got the space and the inclination go for it.

Once lots of butter and salt would be the preference, especially at the movies. A big bag of popcorn, a large soda and something chocolate made the Saturday afternoon pictures a special event, that an the 25 cents I paid to get in.

Times have changed, everything costs more but you can still get a big bag of greasy salty popcorn and a watered down giant cola to get you through the movie.

Sometimes, I add cheese, real cheese, extra old white cheddar or mozzarella to my popcorn and that is tasty.

I have used both a dash of cinnamon and a dash of cayenne pepper, not at the same time, the popcorn was edible but not enough to do it again.

I used to love caramel corn but am not likely to make that myself, I have type Two diabetes and the caramel is too sugary.

By the way, does anybody remember Lucky Elephant popcorn? We used to buy it as kids, because it had some kind of pink flavouring on it and had a prize.

Popcorn is pretty versatile and you can personalize your experience. My preference is plain popcorn with a dash of sea salt. I use salt salt because it has a stronger taste.