In fact, there are 6 major types of corn: dent, sweet, flint, flour, pod, and popcorn. When popcorn was first sold inside movie theaters, almost 100 years ago, it actually helped buoy the business, which was flailing at the time as the country entered the Great Depression. In Nebraska, Iowa, and Indiana, corn—especially the poppable variety—became such an important cash crop that it was dubbed “prairie gold.” By 1917, the region had so deeply embraced this nickname that it inspired poetry: Members of the Iowa Press and Authors' Club collaborated to produce Prairie Gold, a volume of poems and stories that celebrated the region’s corn production. It was used for headdresses, jewelry, and other decorations used to honor their gods. “Many movie theaters had carpeted their lobbies with valuable rugs to emulate the grand theater lobbies,” Andrew Smith writes in Popped Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America. When the Spanish invaded Mexico in 1519, they recorded some of the very first accounts of popcorn when they saw the fluffy treat being used by the Aztecs in various ceremonies. Though pre-popped popcorn failed to impress movie-goers in the 1930s, today, pre-popped snacks are on the rise. Enterprising snack vendors took note: Those who normally camped out at sporting events or festivals began to set up shop outside of movie theaters, drawing the ire of the venues’ owners. Corn was probably cultivated as a domesticated crop around 9,000 years ago, but it wasn’t until 2012 that archaeologists unearthed the first evidence of popcorn in Peru: 6,700-year-old corn cobs studded with puffed kernels. Americans bought $250 million worth of popcorn in 1986, setting off an all-out battle between snack food companies that attempted to corner the market. In 2013, AdAge reported that consumers were also growing tired of waiting for popcorn to pop. If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment. Here is a list of 10 of the most popular types of popcorn machines available today! “We decided to do curbside popcorn pick-up to see how it would go, and we've been doing that for the past couple of weeks and it seems like it's well-received…”. Privacy Policy, The Popcorn Board now offers alternate sites in other languages: These globes of popcorn were held together with a sugary glue, a recipe for which you could find in just about every cookbook at the turn of the century. “We know that in the early Southwest, there was popcorn—it just wasn’t a Jiffy Pop that you’d put in your microwave.”, The fluffy popcorn we know and love today is, in part, the result of thousands of years of careful cultivation of a few different strains of corn by those early tribes. When popcorn became a kid-friendly, inexpensive addition to most holidays in the late 19th century, popcorn balls weren’t far behind. Join 250,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, articles, and more. The 20th century brought more popcorn patents, each aiming to improve the product or refine the tools of the trade.