Popcorn Through the Ages

Popcorn Through the Ages

A Snack That Goes Way Back Do you eat popcorn at the movies? People have been eating popcorn in movie theaters since the early 1900s. However, popcorn is much older than the movies. In fact, it's one of the oldest snack foods in the world. The story of popcorn stretches back thousands of years.

Prehistoric Popcorn People first started growing corn for food in Mexico eight to nine thousand years ago. Corn spread all over the Americas from there. Ancient Americans ground corn into flour. They also popped corn as a snack.

Ancient corncobs and popcorn kernels have survived in caves all over the Americas. A cave in New Mexico called Bat Cave contained corncobs that may be as much as four thousand years old. Meanwhile, scientists have found one- thousand-year-old popped corn in a cave in Utah. Some of this ancient popcorn looks almost fresh. Would you eat popcorn that's been sitting in a cave for a thousand years?

Popcorn in the New World European explorers got a surprise in the Americas in the 1600s. Popcorn was a snack they'd never seen before. They found people eating it every where, though. Native Americans near the Great Lakes ate popcorn in a soup. People in Peru toasted popcorn and ate it as a snack. The European colonists loved popcorn, too. They popped corn over a fire as a snack. Some also ate popcorn for breakfast with cream and sugar. It must have tasted a little bit like our cereal today.

Popcorn Explodes Over time, popcorn grew more and more popular. However, it was a snack people usually made for themselves at home, in small amounts. It took time to pop corn in a kettle over a fire. That all changed in 1885 when Charles Cretors, a Chicago businessman, invented the first popcorn-popping machine. His machine popped corn quickly and easily. It also had wheels. As a result, popcorn could be sold on the street at fairs, circuses, and sporting events.