Cracker Jack dates to one of my favorite home town/historical events, the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, also known as the World’s Columbian Exposition. It was there that two German immigrants, Frederick and Louis Rueckheim, began selling a concoction of popcorn and salted peanuts held together by a molasses-based binder. Popular as it was at […]
READ ONAs sought-after as popcorn was in the colonial and industrial periods, it wasn’t widely available as a grocery. If you wanted it you generally grew it yourself or got it from some other nearby farmer, probably by bartering. It wasn’t until the 1880’s that popcorn really took off as a commercial product. By most accounts […]
READ ONElizabeth over at Recipe Journey, using the base cracker recipe I put up a few months ago, has come up with some pretty neat riffs on it. If you’re into creative crackers, you’ll want to take a look!
READ ONThey way it works is this: each kernel of popcorn contains its own tiny troll. When you get the kernel hot the troll gets so angry it explodes out of its little corn house and tries to take revenge by scalding you with a searing hot puff of steam. An alternate explanation is that it’s […]
READ ON15.6 billion quarts of popped popcorn per year. Each man, woman and child consumes, on average, a quart per week.
READ ONPopcorn has been called “the great equalizer” because of its appeal to people at every level of American society. I think there’s something to that, because I can’t think of a single person I know who doesn’t like it. Speaking for myself, I avoided popcorn for quite a while, after a summer working at a […]
READ ONMore American, really, for a food just doesn’t get anymore New World/American than popcorn. You probably already know that corn is a New World food. It follows that popping corn is as well, though it’s distinct from more conventional varieties in that its kernels are smaller and harder. Popcorn is a variety of so-called “flint” […]
READ ONWhat we have here is more like Cracker Jack than regular caramel corn, which is the way we roll in the Pastry household. Leave the peanuts out of you prefer, but be sure to add an extra teaspoon of salt to compensate. 1 ounce (2 tablespoon) vegetable oil 3.75 ounces (1/2 cup) popcorn kernels 5 […]
READ ONSo it isn’t pastry, but it’s delicious and a great hot weather sweet. I’m game.
READ ONI’ve been reminded by readers Nate and Sandra that Longfellow wrote an epic poem on the subject of the Acadians and their expulsion: Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie. If you’ve got a little time you can read the whole thing here.
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