I admit, when I saw the headline in the Dining Section of last Wednesday’s New York Times, I thought it was about playing with your food….
but not quite. Sometimes, you have to read the whole headline.
The actual headline: The Rise of Craft Popcorn. And it’s a very interesting story, about small farmers bringing back specialty popcorns, which now must be craft, no doubt because the term artisan has been so overused as to be meaningless.
For one thing, I learned that popcorn
Popcorn kernels -Zea mays everta
is more closely related to flint corn then I thought before…
Flint corn or Zea mays indurata – popcorn may actually be a variety of flint corn
Which is just in time for Pilgrim and popcorn stories. And Thanksgiving and Turkey stories.
They’re just not true – whether or not flint corn can beget popcorn or not – because no one in the 17th (or 18th) century mentions them. Most of them began in the 19th century which is 200 years too late to be timely, but they’re interesting.
John Howland pondering popcorn at the first Thanksgiving – from a scene from a 19th century novel Standish of Standish
Jane Goodwin Austin’s Standish of Standish has this scenes – in 1889.
Jane Goodwin Austin, not to be confused with Jane Austen, the Pride and Prejudice author. Please.
Turkey, popcorn and Thanksgiving. They way it never happened.
Paperbag turkey with popcorn
directions to paperbag turkey here
The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven
by Jack Prelutsky
The turkey shot out of the oven
and rocketed into the air,
it knocked every plate off the table
and partly demolished a chair.
It ricocheted into a corner
and burst with a deafening boom,
then splattered all over the kitchen,
completely obscuring the room.
It stuck to the walls and the windows,
it totally coated the floor,
there was turkey attached to the ceiling,
where there’d never been turkey before.
It blanketed every appliance,
it smeared every saucer and bowl,
there wasn’t a way i could stop it,
that turkey was out of control.
I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure,
and though with chagrin as I mopped,
that I’d never again stuff a turkey
with popcorn that hadn’t been popped.
Something BIG Has Been Here written by Jack Prelutsky and illus. by James Stevenson, 1990.
You can’t pop popcorn inside a turkey. Use a covered pan for the best results.
and that doesn’t even begin to cover johnnycakes…..
Johnnycakes from the Kenyon Mills Facebook page – they way they like ’em in Rhode Island
and then there’s Indian Pudding, and Brown Bread and sampe and corn bread and …….it’s all grist for the mill…
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