Funny Holidays - Popcorn Birthday (Popcorn Day)

When audiences gather in a movie theater to double the pleasure of watching a movie, they usually take with them a sweet soda and a bucket of popcorn This delicacy is sold in every cinema Puffed corn has become an integral attribute of modern film culture For this we should thank the Americans, who introduced such a tradition Many people cook it at home in the microwave Sweet, salty, with the taste of cheese, bacon, onion, sour cream, paprika, caramel, chocolate, hot pepper - a variety of all kinds of additives has made popcorn a universal treat that can appeal to everyone It is often prepared at home and sold in supermarkets On January 22, a very funny holiday is celebrated - the birthday of popcorn, which is better known to all of us under another name - popcorn Today, alas, there is no information about who first came up with the idea of ​​heating grains to a high temperature so that they exploded Most likely, this culinary discovery happened by pure chance Puffed corn can be stored for a very long time On the territory of modern Peru, archaeologists have discovered grains whose age has reached 1000 years As it turned out, they can even now be put in the microwave to make popcorn, and the long shelf life has no effect on the properties of the product Residents of South America made special vessels for preparing puffed corn The age of such containers found by archaeologists exceeded several thousand years Native Americans loved to make all kinds of jewelry The most famous of them are feather crowns Few people know that women from Indian tribes decorated their hair with corn kernels They wove them into their hair, sometimes made necklaces, and this was considered beautiful among the locals Corn formed the basis of their diet Flour was made from maize, which was used for baking Lenten flatbreads The Indians did not have wheat, but there is no point in lamenting their poor diet, because in addition to meat and corn, they prepared dishes from tomatoes, potatoes, cocoa, cotton, peppers, beans, peanuts, legumes, cassava, and sunflowers Yes, yes, it was the indigenous people of America who gave us such a variety of vegetables and root vegetables Corn has always occupied a special place in their culture The date of the holiday was not chosen by chance It was at the end of January in 1630 that an Indian chief named Quodequaina gave a bag of popcorn kernels to the English According to one version, these were colonists who decided to settle in South America According to another, they were English sailors who temporarily stopped off the coast of the recently discovered continent One way or another, popcorn found its way to the Old World, where it became a real hit Two centuries later, a special apparatus was invented that made it possible to put the preparation of puffed corn on stream The idea came from a Chicago resident named Charlie Kritoz He called his unit “Popper” Today you can make popcorn at home According to a common version, popcorn prompted the creator of the microwave oven to invent it In 1945, American engineer and inventor Percy Spencer noticed that popcorn kernels exploded when exposed to microwave radiation, as if they were placed on fire This prompted him to study the effect more deeply and create the world's first microwave To make popcorn, you need to buy a special variety of sweet corn The regular one is not suitable for this, as it simply will not explode in the microwave Sweet or popcorn kernels contain some water When heated to high temperatures, it turns into steam, which becomes crowded Anyone who has poured boiling water into bottles at least once has experienced the opposite effect As the liquid cools, the plastic container shrinks, making it difficult to open the lid When heated, the steam literally breaks the corn kernels, turning them inside out This is how we get popcorn