© 2024 Connecticut Public

FCC Public Inspection Files:
WEDH · WEDN · WEDW · WEDY · WNPR
WPKT · WRLI-FM · WEDW-FM · Public Files Contact
ATSC 3.0 FAQ
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Aztec Gold: Watch The History And Science Of Popcorn

Editor's note: It's National Popcorn Day! We're celebrating by bringing back this tale, first published in 2014, about the history of the beloved snack.

Popcorn is a truly ancient snack. Archaeologists have uncovered popcorn kernels that are 4,000 years old. They were so well-preserved, they could still pop.

Dolores Piperno, a paleobotanist with the Smithsonian's Tropical Research Insitute, says corn, and specifically popcorn, helped lay the foundations for the Aztec Empire.

"When you have a very highly productive crop like corn, that makes the rise of high civilizations possible," she says.

Piperno grows the wild, great-grandaddy of modern corn — a weird grain called teosinte. It has just a few kernels on each stalk, and they're too hard to eat or to grind into flour. But teosinte has a special property that almost makes up for these shortcomings: It can pop.

"All early corns were popcorns," Piperno says. "They were around for millennia before these other forms of corn."

After a couple of thousand years, the Mesoamericans managed to cultivate varieties of corn that were good for flour, but they still ate popcorn. The Aztec language even has a word for the sound of many kernels popping at once — totopoca.

After the Spanish invaded, popcorn spread around the world, and soon people began to figure out how popcorn actually works.

It turns out that rock-hard kernel — the thing that makes teosinte and popcorn impossible to eat raw — is the key.

"It acts as a pressure cooker," says David Jackson, a food scientist at the University of Nebraska. He says the durable kernel keeps water and starch sealed inside. When a kernel is heated, the starch liquefies and the pressure builds until the seed coat breaks.

"The pressure cooker essentially fails, and it explodes outward into a popped kernel," Jackson says.

The liquefied starch froths outward, cooling and solidifying in a fraction of a second. If you look at a popped kernel under the microscope, you can actually see the bubbles that were formed by the expanding steam. That's why popcorn is so light and fluffy — it's made of bubbles.

There's something to think about next time you're stuck watching a bad movie.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stand up for civility

This news story is funded in large part by Connecticut Public’s Members — listeners, viewers, and readers like you who value fact-based journalism and trustworthy information.

We hope their support inspires you to donate so that we can continue telling stories that inform, educate, and inspire you and your neighbors. As a community-supported public media service, Connecticut Public has relied on donor support for more than 50 years.

Your donation today will allow us to continue this work on your behalf. Give today at any amount and join the 50,000 members who are building a better—and more civil—Connecticut to live, work, and play.

Related Content