The Recipe Box: Nonsense Popcorn

Nonsense Popcorn

From the recipe box of KimB

Everyone likes a story.

We tell them all the time, and there are many types of stories. Some we make up and others we embellish. Sometimes we play the hero and other times we play the victim. Some stories are funny and others are sad. We tell them about all sorts of topics. Some topics are interesting to us, but not so interesting to others. Many stories are important as they mark significant days in our lives. Birthdays are happy days and Deaths are sad ones.

There are stories about events or universal experiences. Some events that were important fade, like the memories of ancient wars, or even recent ones, as the people with the most direct memory pass from life or from public view. Events that were thought to be momentous turn out to be little remembered, while other events that were overlooked turn out to be pivotal events of the future. We tell them all as stories.

There are stories about every aspect of our lives and our outlook on life or how it changed or didn't. Some stories have kernels of "reality or truth" and others are just "made up from whole cloth".

Stories that are made up are much enjoyed because there isn't any restriction to the imagination. A modern known problem is the "image bearing" story, like movies, video, and drawn graphic works, where your imagination is robbed of your own interpretation and replaced with a synthetic version provided by the movie, video and graphic artist. Music has something similar with sound, generating lots of sound mimicry. Music scores contain mimicry marks intended to produce the same sounds over and over again. Written words direct your imagination to a particular discription but allow you to fill in or remake the description as you prefer.

One's own stories have a private environment and cast list and these can alter in infinite ways; "Did I tell you about..." and "Do you remember..." giving rise to new variations on existing stories. Stories presented as movies get a re-telling when we describe a movie or TV show we watched to others (with or without spoilers). Music has its own imagery and lots of words attempt to capture the effects of sound: fast beat, cressendo, ballad are attempts to tell the story of sounds.

Some stories are just nonsense and have their own attraction: Jabberwocky. These stories may contain a figment of reality but also play havoc with our personal sense of Up and Down.

Twas bryllyg, and y^e slythy toves
Did gyre and gymble in y^e wabe:
All mimsy were y^e borogoves;
And y^e mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll 1855

In reference to recipes, we have multitude of stories about them. Where, when and how we learned or first tasted a dish. Stories on how to make it using "authentic" methods, along with myriads of stories on how to avoid failed or burned results. Sometimes these stories and the steps given, have a basis in how the ingredients function together: if you make the yeast incorrectly the bread doesn't rise; a practical application of chemistry. Some steps are pure inventions and their explainations have no effect on the outcome of the dish; mind game puzzles in the kitchen.

My story on Nonsense Popcorn is Jabberwocky. It's pure nonsense with perhaps an smidge of reality but it's a fun story I tell myself as I make it.

The Story of Nonsense Popcorn

Pre-COVID the microwave in the kitchen died. I had intended to have it repaired or replaced but SARS-CoV-2 had other things in mind for the planet. So I had to learn or re-learn how to cook sans-microwave, you know, the Old Fashioned Way of putting a pan of water on the cooktop to heat it.

Recently, I took a chance and purchased a countertop microwave. There are number of risks involved besides the costs. The supply chain isn't very stable and I'd already had an experience with a SlowPotPressureCooker that had to be returned, so I wasn't sure it would actually arrive, or work, or for how long. It did, it does and time will tell.

It's now sitting on a counter and I have to relearn how to use it. It's a bit like the old saying about prunes: "Is Three Enough, Is Six Too Many" . Is 1 minute enough or 1 min 30 seconds too much? Which is 90 seconds if you go the fastest way around the key pad.

To celebrate the re-acquisition of this modern necessity, I bought the MOST IMPORTANT item you can have for a microwave: Popcorn Kernels and a Microwave Popcorn Maker. Several hundred dollars plus a $3 jar of kernels spent to make a dish of popcorn. I could have made the popcorn on the the stove top, but I forgot how to do that.

After checking all the latest and greatest gadgets for making popcorn I opted for a $10 borosilicate glass bowl, aka a pyrex style glass bowl, which looks something like a goldfish bowl encased a silicone plastic net with handle.

All keen to have a tasty dish of popcorn, I followed the directions (mostly), put it in the microwave, selected the popcorn option and BAM!

.. pop pop pop pop... sniff sniff... yikes! It burnt ..

Nothing like burnt popcorn to remind you of why you didn't make much of it before COVID. That and the residue hull bits that get stuck in your teeth.

So I set about re-learning about how to make popcorn. There's a lot of information on hows and whys and I picked out the suggestions I thought would work for me and that is how I created My Story of Popcorn: A Nonsense Story

Internet Research

• Some information indicates the moisture content of the kernel determines if it pops.
• Some information states the kernel hull is very hard (aka flint) and impervious to moisture.
• Application of heat, duration and temperature levels, impact the popping.
  • Too cold = no pop
  • Too mild = under popped
  • Too hot = burns
  Like Golidlocks, the temperature has to be Just Right.

I experimented and dinked and tried this and that, to get:

ALL the kernels to pop WITHOUT burning it.

So I put in the required amount kernels and add a tiny bit of water. I think the dryer kernels enjoy something to drink even though the hulls are "impervious to moisture".

I add a pat of butter with a dash of salt or flavor to the top lid on the theory that the results will taste better, which it does.

I also think the few drops of oil will help the kernels to pop better. The reality is most of the salt and oil stay in the glass bowl and only a small amount finds its way onto the popcorn. Popcorn is not a super absorber. It's a fun thought anyway.

Then I do a ritual pre-heat cooking. I give the kernels a jolt of microwaves to wake them up. It does produce some steam inside the bowl which I image helps the popping aspect. Fog in a Bowl.

Then I give the whole thing the Big Jolt and wait for

The Popcorn Oracle to Speak.

• If I get a big flurry of popping and the bowl fills up fast I know there won't be many no-poppers on the bottom but I have to stop the cooking or it will burn. Cancel is Your Friend.
  
  
• If the flurry is pathetic and fills less than half the bowl, I hit Cancel and remove the good stuff before it burns.
  
  In revenge I put the no-poppers back in the microwave with another Big Jolt and challenge those unpopped kernels to see if they can resist THIS JOLT!
  
  I might do this several times before capitulating that the unpopped ones in the bottom are not going to pop.

If The Popcorn Oracle gives a good prophecy I get 3 dishes of popcorn; if it's a poor one: 2 dishes.

The Popcorn Oracle. is always generous; you just have to watch for the burnt ones, or develop a taste for carbonized corn.

Ingredients: Nonsense Popcorn

Popcorn Bowl

2 TBS popcorn kernels
1 tsp water
Microwave Popcorn Glass Bowl

Optional:
1-2 pats of cold butter
sprinkling of salt, sugar, garlic powder or other flavorings

Preparation:

1. Place 2 TBS of popcorn kernels in the popping bowl.
2. Add 1 tsp of water to the popping bowl, stir, let sit 1-5 min.
3. Optional: Place butter in small dish. Sprinkle salt or flavoring on the butter. Stir lightly until flavoring has adhered to the butter pats. Put butter pats on the popper butter lid.
   
4. Microwave 20 seconds. Let sit @30-60 seconds.
5. Microwave 2 minutes. Cancel if the popping stops for 2-3 sec.
6. Remove popped kernels to a dish, leaving unpopped kernels in bowl.
7. Microwave the unpopped kernels 1-2 minutes. Cancel if the popping stops for 2-3 sec.
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 as needed.

The Popcorn Oracle has Spoken