Popcorn

I don’t know for sure if popcorn is an acquired taste or if one can be born with a genetic predisposition to love it, but based on my experience I’m willing to bet it’s genetics. I love popcorn. Not just in an “every once in awhile” kind of way either. I mean I love popcorn. I eat it multiple times a week, and crave it even more often and have ever since I can remember. I can’t remember ever watching a movie with my mom without munching on a big bowl of warm, buttery popcorn. I easily remember nights when my mom, step dad and I would get home from a meeting or something after skipping supper and simply eating popcorn for supper. And, like me, Mom didn’t like to share. “Get your own popcorn, “ was a common refrain in my house.

And now my kids love popcorn. Madeleine and Hank get more excited about the fact that they get to eat popcorn when Joe and I announce that we’re about to embark on a movie night than the fact that they get to stay up late and watch a movie. This truth was illustrated the other night when they had two friends over to watch a movie. I made popcorn for them, of course, and served it to them in four individual bowls. My kids ate their first bowl. Refill. Ate a second bowl. Their friends? One ate a quarter of their bowl, the other half. And they like popcorn. I guess they just don’t like popcorn.

There are so many different ways to eat popcorn, with butter, without, salt, sugar… how is a person supposed to know what to choose? My recommendation is to try them all but if you don’t love popcorn as I do then just read on and take my advice.

If I didn’t care about calories and clogged arteries my first choice way to make popcorn would be in my Whirley Pop stovetop popcorn popper. Coat the bottom of the popper with grape seed oil and kosher salt, pop the popcorn and add popcorn salt and butter to taste (shamefully, I love lots of both).

However, since I don’t want to weigh 15,000 pounds and I’d like to dream about fitting into skinny jeans, I typically put just a touch of grape seed oil in the bottom of my Whirley pop, a little kosher salt and then pop my corn. It’s actually still pretty good.

The absolute best popcorn, in my opinion, unfortunately just happens to be the worst for you. Movie theatre popcorn. Oh good heavens is it good. I knew I’d found the man of my dreams the first time Joe and I went to a movie together and he confessed he didn’t even like popcorn that much. Perfect, since smashing hands with someone while you’re trying to enjoy movie theatre popcorn just totally ruins everything (as it does for all popcorn, really; remember the “get your own popcorn” refrain from above?). But don’t try to make it at home. Yeah, you can buy coconut oil and do it, but it never tastes the same. Save the indulgence for the theatre.

I had planned to research popcorn a bit and put in a few interesting facts and details. But I have two problems. The first is I kind of like thinking of popcorn in terms of beginning in my childhood, introduced to me by my mom, a fellow popcorn aficionado, and knowing its real history would ruin that. But most importantly I’m now craving some popcorn. The kids are asleep and Grey’s Anatomy is on so I think I will wrap this and go indulge.