Like every ode, this one starts with a question: what is popcorn? Is it your favourite cinema snack? Is it “a variety of corn kernel which expands and puffs up when heated“? Or is it a unique and miraculous manifestation of our innermost desire to achieve cathartic transformation of the self?
I’ll try to answer this question and, doubtlessly, along the way, will go through the existential tribulations which are basically synonymous with the notion of popcorn in the mainstream hive mind.
a mostly factual brief history of popcorn
Popcorn was invented in a small town called Pco, by two brothers named Po and Rn. Keep in mind, this happened around seven thousand years ago, so before the age of power couples, meaning it wasn’t immediately intuitive how to portmanteau effectively. Only in the late 1800s did “popcorn” (previously “popped corn”) become readily available, as the American military-industrial complex developed the popcorn maker of which you can now buy miniatures to quirk up your home.
Harvey Dent once said “The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming”. This is in reference to the Great Depression and the role that popcorn played to keep people an inch further away from starvation, its low price boosting the industry and safeguarding the livelihood of farmers in those, indeed, dark days for the North American continent. Then, during the Second World War, as sugar was rationed, popcorn became the go-to replacement, particularly for the burgeoning cinema goers.
Of course, its introduction to these hallowed grounds wasn’t immediately embraced, operators fearing it distracted from the moviegoing experience. In *some* Timisoara cinemas, that impression persists. But what popcorn actually did was subsidize ticket costs, something that remains true to this day, with more than 46% of cinema profits coming from concessions like popcorn.
technology and nutrition
As I keep jumping through this Wikipedia article, it seems there are two distinctive types of popcorn that dominate the market: the butterfly popcorn and the mushroom popcorn. The former is the one that should be more familiar to vanilla cinemagoers like myself, who only consume the traditional, salted variety. The latter, while incidentally occurring when kernels pop, is a genetically modified abomination that serves as a base for sweetened popcorn, like caramel or chocolate glazed varieties.
My mind drifts to the early 2000s, when in front of our local Cinema Capitol there used to be a popcorn stand – old-school, but with adjustments made for 20th century capitalism, as a middle-aged woman sold you popcorn in the cheapest plastic bag on the market (basically like these things from Mozambique). I knew the end was near when some variant of chocolate glazed popcorn was introduced, its stench wafting all the way up and down the street and ensuring no sane person would go near the thing.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand this concept. Even if it didn’t stink (nachos with cheese, I’m looking at you as well), why would you ever ruin the holy tandem of popcorn and fizz? I can’t imagine drinking any sweet soda (or sugar-free, at that) alongside sweet popcorn, which is why the German people as a whole will never rank very highly in my hierarchization of modern civilizations.
I’ll readily admit I have my own sins to bear, because cinema popcorn, even the salted one, is in itself a nutritionally challenged snack. Usually made using some form of oil (i.e. saturated fat) and covered in a copious amount of salt (just don’t look up how much salt you should consume daily if you want to live a short and happy life), the stuff at the cinema is only surpassed by microwave popcorn in how low it brings the nutritional bar.
that being said
Does it really matter? It’s not like you’re going to the cinema three times a week and chomping down on a medium-sized box of popcorn every time, is it? Like most sinful things, the occasional pairing of some carbonated drink with popcorn brings joy and that’s where the buck stops.
If you’re addicted to it, just get an air-fryer, train your brain to enjoy the texturing more than the taste, and get your daily dose of carbs (just run them off, will you?), fiber, B vitamins and various minerals (particularly manganese, phosphorus, zinc) with no significant downsides.
Isn’t it just wonderous, how a little yellow kernel that would break your teeth can metamorphosize into this crunchy snowflake? Isn’t it even more wonderous that it still might break your teeth? Eating popcorn is the quintessential definition of living on the edge.
And in all these years of eating popcorn, I’ve only once had to go to the dentist because a hull got lodged between my gum and a tooth and it was only mildly traumatizing as blood gushed out of my mouth as I was getting it removed. No biggie!
Popcorn lobby, I’d like my free popcorn for life now, please, thank you very much, mulţumesc, danke, merci, grazie, благодаря.
at the cinema
Seriously though, there’s just something infinitely comforting to me in this cinema routine. A bit like Rafa Nadal’s ritual between games and before serving, it puts me in the frame of mind that I need to be in when heading into the movies. People think me eccentric for wanting to be in my seat before the ads and trailers start, but I am basically like Rafa – born in the 80s, taller than average, not a natural lefty, and the list goes on.
What do I say to those who are bothered by the crackle of popcorn between people’s fingers and teeth? I feel sorry for them, because there are so few movies where this is a critical factor, that it’s not worth getting upset over. The rustling of paper bags (one has to draw a line somewhere, plastic bags are below it) is just the sound of a living, breathing cinema venue. A movie without two popcorn kernels producing acoustic fission during Oppenheimer is like a concert without someone coughing in the middle of the Beethoven’s 7th Allegro con brio – did you even hear it?
If you’ve read my thoughts on the Cinema City venue I am a regular at, you know I am torn about whether a screening should be generously attended or not, but to go all Kantian on this – being alone at the cinema can’t become a categorical imperative.
Do I have rules about eating popcorn, you ask? Why…not really. I used to not touch the stuff before the movie started (to the absolute annoyance of one of my exes), but now I don’t care as much, it will all be gone by the twenty minute mark, which also means that it doesn’t cause disturbances when the movie really gets going. Other than that, I do tend to eat it one kernel at a time, unless I’m sharing, and then it’s all out warfare who can aspirate more of it faster.
I asked ChatGPT to help me out with some iconic depictions of popcorn in the movies (going meta, you see), but the suggestions were underwhelming: Scream/Scary Movie (something for the male gaze here), Real Genius (ok, this one’s good, I haven’t seen the movie), Gremlins and It (ok, not bad), among others. My GPT friend even made up a scene with popcorn in Tropic Thunder, but at least this made me rewatch the splendiferous credits. Any suggestions? Leave them in the comments box on your way out.
short, grounded conclusion
Popcorn isn’t just carbs and noise. It is one of the few forms of magic we are guaranteed to come across in your lives. It is the macronutrient that binds feelings to the movies we watch.
Popcorn isn’t a part of the question. It is a part of the answer.
tributary stu 