Popcorn: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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== History ==

{{globalise|date=March 2023}}

Corn was domesticated about 10,000 years ago, in what is now [[Mexico]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/selection/corn/ |title=The Evolution of Corn |publisher=University of Utah Health Sciences |access-date=2 January 2016 }}</ref> Archaeologists discovered that people have known about popcorn for thousands of years. Fossil evidence from [[Peru]] suggests that corn was present there as early as 4700 [[Common Era|BCE]], and popped there over 1000 years ago.<ref name="usda">{{cite web |title=Early History · Popcorn: Ingrained in America's Agricultural History · |url=https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/speccoll/exhibits/show/popcorn/early-history#:~:text=The%20oldest%20ears%20of%20popcorn,are%20about%205%2C600%20years%20old. |website=www.nal.usda.gov |publisher=U.S. Department of Agriculture |access-date=January 16, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title= Ancient Popcorn Unearthed in Peru |first= Joseph |last= Stromberg |work= [[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]] |url= https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ancient-popcorn-unearthed-in-peru-81304339/ |access-date= 2021-01-01}}</ref><ref name="GrobmanBonavia2012">{{cite journal|last1=Grobman|first1=A.|last2=Bonavia|first2=D.|last3=Dillehay|first3=T.D.|last4=Piperno|first4=D.R.|last5=Iriarte|first5=J.|last6=Holst|first6=I.|title=Preceramic maize from Paredones and Huaca Prieta, Peru|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|volume=109|issue=5|year=2012|pages=1755–1759|issn=0027-8424|doi=10.1073/pnas.1120270109|pmid=22307642|pmc=3277113|bibcode=2012PNAS..109.1755G|doi-access=free}}</ref> The oldest definitive evidence for popping corn was discovered in [[New Mexico]], [[United States]], determined to be as early as 3600 BCE, and attributed to the [[Ancestral Puebloan]] peoples, who maintained trade networks with peoples in tropical Mexico.<ref name="usda" /><ref>{{cite web |title=History of Popcorn |url=https://www.popcorn.org/All-About-Popcorn/History-of-Popcorn |website=www.popcorn.org |access-date=January 16, 2024}}</ref>

Through the 19th century, popping of the kernels was achieved by hand, on stove tops. Kernels were sold on the [[East Coast of the United States]] under names such as ''Pearls'' or ''Nonpareil''. The term ''popped corn'' first appeared in [[John Russell Bartlett]]'s 1848 ''Dictionary of Americanisms''.<ref name=":1">{{cite web|title=History of Popcorn {{!}} The History Kitchen |url=https://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/popcorn-history/|website=Pbs.org/food|access-date=21 January 2016|language=en-US|date=29 October 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Dictionary of Americanisms, by John Russell Bartlett (1848)|url=http://www.merrycoz.org/voices/bartlett/Amer.xhtml|website=Merrycoz.org|access-date=21 January 2016}}</ref> Popcorn is an ingredient in [[Cracker Jack]] and, in the early years of the product, it was popped by hand.<ref name=":1" />