Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1874 — Popping Corn. [ARTICLE]

Popping Corn.

Isn’t it fun to pop corn ?—and when it is popped isn’t it good? Most boys in the country grow a few hills of pop corn to furnhh them amusement in the winter evenings. There is some skill to be used in so simple a thing as popping corn. In the first place, the corn should be well dried, for when too fresh and soft it d*oes not pop well at ay. Then a wire popper with a long handle is the best thing to pop it in. A very small handful of com, only about enough to cover the bottom, is put in the popper and the cover fastened down. Then we must heat the corn gradually, holding it at a distance from the coals, and when it is well heated through bring it nt arer the fire, when the popping will begin. You must shake all the time, and the more the corn pops the faster you must shake to prevent burning. If the corn is of a good kind a very little will fill the popper when finished. Pop! pop!—how the little grains bounce about as they jump up and put pn their snowy night-caps. Look at a popped grain. It does not seem at all like a kernel of corn; it is fairly turned inside out. What makes the corn pop and behave in this way? The chemist says that the corn contains an oil, and that the heat turns this, oil into gas, and when the pressure of this gas gets strong enough to burst the gram, pop it goes. That com contains oil may be new to you, but there is oil in it, and in some kinds of corn a great deal. Sixteen gallons of oil have been obtained from 100 bushels of grain, and very nice oil too. It has but one fault, and that is it costs too much to get it out of the corn ; while the mineral oil lasts—the petroleum from which they get kerosene —it is not likely that we shall feed our lamps with com oil. When you hear the grains go off with a “pop,” and a “ sput,” just remember it is the oil that affords you all the fun, and turns the hard and flinty grains into beautiful masses of corn-starch, not only pleasing to look at, but wholesome to eat. — American Agriculturist.