From Hoosier Country
Palmyra, Indiana is pretty much God's country -- church sponsored bridge games, American flags outside every house.
Palmyra is also home to the Preferred Popcorn Company. Manager Brian Churchill is taking me on a tour. We're watching some futuristic-looking popcorn robots bag up corn that's falling form a hole in the ceiling.
"So it's laying it out and it's putting the corn in the bags, in the paper bags. It's laying out 50 pounds at a time," Churchill says. The machine bags 600 of these 50-pound bags per hour. That's an impressive 30,000Â pounds of popcorn each hour.
"This is going overseas, so it has a special label on it in their language," he says. Preferred Popcorn ships to so many places, Churchill doesn't even know where this batch is going. "Maybe some kind of arabic-speaking country?"
A History Of Snacking
If you think about it, it's kind of perfect that Preferred Popcorn is located right in the middle of the American heartland. Even though it's never reached the iconic status awarded to, say, apple pie or cheeseburgers, popcorn is one of the most American treats there is. Movie theaters, baseball games, county fairs -- they'd all seem incomplete without popcorn.
But the snack hasn't been around forever, according to Andrew F. Smith, food historian and author of books like "The Rise And Fall Of Tuna" and "Hamburger: A Global History."
Smith says that even though popcorn had been around for thousands of years, Americans only discovered it during the 19th century. It became popular during the Great Depression, thanks to movies
"Typically, as soon as movie theaters starting serving popcorn in the 1930s, that's when popcorn took off a snack food."
Except for a dip right before the introduction of microwaves in the '40s and '50s, popcorn has remained popular ever since. It's even gaining traction overseas in countries like China, who like it for the same reason America does - it's super cheap.
"Popcorn itself is very inexpensive, by far it is the least expensive snack foods available today," says Smith.
Dill Pickle Popcorn?
Just like sliders and beer, this previously humble snack has started to receive the gourmet treatment.
"I was in Chicago. I saw a line wrapped around the the corner of this building," says gourmet popcorn maker Inga Smith." I said, ‘What in the world is going on there?' It was Garrett's Popcorn, and a shock went through my body and I knew that's what I had to do."
Inga Smith jumped on the popcorn train at just the right time. She opened her Bloomington shop three years ago. It was so successful, she opened a second shop in Zionsville, an Indianapolis suburb, only a year later. "I think it's like embedded in growing up. It's movies, it's sporting events," she says.
Customers pay seven bucks a quart for Inga's popcorn. She says it's perfect for every occasion. "Birthday parties, bridal showers, weddings. We've become pretty much a gift shop, a lot of people buy my popcorn to give as gifts."
"I remember like, family cooking around the stove," says Logan Grzesiek, who was stirring up a batch of caramel corn at Inga's when I visited. "When you're in college, come get that traditional popcorn thing you can't get anywhere else. I mean, you can get microwave popcorn, but it's just not the same as out of a popper."
Inga's flavors are, for the most part, pretty tame -- caramel corn and cheddar, along with jalapeño and cake batter. Depending on how adventurous you feel, you could try margarita popcorn or even the "pregnancy mix" - a combination of dill pickle and ice cream.
Popped A World Away
Back in the factory, it's easy to realize why the snack is so attractive, because it's so simple. Farmers bring the grain to the factory, a huge machine sorts it by size, and after that the robots seal it into bags. Nothing has to be cooked or made. Popcorn is good to go.
"The load that we are looking at, it goes to Lebanon," says Churchill.
Remember all those bags from the beginning? We finally figured out where they were being shipped to - Lebanon. No, not Lebanon, Indiana. Lebanon the country. Maybe soon people there will be enjoying dill pickle and ice cream popcorn too.
