Earliest popcorn

The first evidence of popcorn has been radiocarbon-dated dates to as old as 6,700 years (c. 4700 BCE), based on macrofossil cobs unearthed between 2007 and 2011 at the Paredones and Huaca Prieta archaeological sites on the northern coast of Peru. Pre-Columbian Amerindians had domesticated maize (Zea mays) around 9,000 years ago. The findings from the dig, published in the PNAS journal on 31 January 2012, attest to the domestication of the varietal known as popcorn (Zea mays everta) by the fifth millennium BCE.

Until the Peruvian discovery, the oldest ears of popcorn, found in the Bat Cave in New Mexico, had been dated to 5,600 years ago. There are conflicting theories about how popcorn became so ubiquitous in North America. Some scholars insist that the indigenous Iroquois introduced it to early American settlers, while others believe that whalers brought the corn to New England from South America only in the 19th century.

A self-contained popcorn popper was invented in the 1830s, but popcorn as a favourite snack really took off when Charles Cretors introduced a mobile, steam-powered popping machine to the public at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago (he had previously devised the popcorn wagon in 1885).

Popcorn has kept up with the times and technology: in 1981, General Mills introduced microwavable popcorn, and in 2011 the Cretors Company, still going strong, brought the OriginatAir Hot Air Popper and Puffer to market, a machine that pops corn with air, rather than oil, making it a healthier snack.