Popcorn dreams

Popcorn.

Why is it, regardless of the time of day, whenever I go to the theater I must have popcorn? I don't even like it at movie theaters, yet like a pack of driven lemmings we are pushed over the brink of nutritional sense ang get it anyway. It was free. Yeah right, but I signed up for the movie card anyway, thereby getting a "free" bag of popcorn. I was seeing Pride and Prejudice with a friend. We had just had nutritionally fresh organic Mexican food next door, ( it is Eugene) a margarita, and defenses down, got that darn bag.

Jane Austin did not have popcorn. In her day, I think all the women did was drink tea and wander around in ruthlessly rumpled linens, looking slender. They also certainly didn't iron, bathe daily, or perm. The Men, certainly did not eat popcorn, they were too busy swooning over the view of an ankle, a delicate wrist and murmuring, "My dear, you are just too exquisite." After that couples were immediately married.

Yet, my friend and happily munched on popcorn watching Jane's world on the big screen. Really, doesn't it taste like styrofoam? I have never actually eaten styrofoam, but popcorn has that same grating dry crunch when chomped. It sounds like crunching through the top crust of old hard snow. And, the salt used at movie theaters is so fine it powders every crevice, thereby driving a need for another margarita. I used to order the butter, and in the dark would fish for the soggy, oily, butter soaked pieces. We all have our secret in-the-dark-ways to eat at theaters.

Popcorn that way don't get no respect. I made popcorn in class one day while teaching Film History because I realized no one had ever had true popcorn.

Most have only used the blow up pufferfish bags of popcorn you put in the microwave. With threatening sayings like PUT THIS SIDE DOWN, OPEN AWAY FROM YOUR FACE, AND FOOD WILL BE HOT, in 4 minutes you can have a batch of blown up kernels, coated on one side only with coconut oil. At 4 and one half minutes you have a burn event, smoke out the whole classroom/faculty room/kitchen, and the dregs sit outside on the deck until they stop smoking.

Or, last year, my family had a couple of months where we made Whirly Pop Popcorn. We did the whirly pop dance, twirling like dervishes as we held down the top and turned the handle like organ grinders. Our family was devoted to the cinnamon sugar popcorn, but what it really was about was the act of pouring the popcorn into the machine. I love that plinky sound as the hard kernels hit the pan. And then about 3 minutes later,hearing the submerged sonar sound of the corn exploding inside the container. The aroma of popping corn is distinctive, and regressive for me, to childhood. I loved those family Whirly Pop moments.

My childhood was not in the States, and my first real memory of popcorn is actually as packing material. I get it! Popcorn was the original styrofoam!

When I was six, we lived in Turkey at the time hula hoops were the rage. The PX, or base store had no hula hoops. Parents were in line around the block at Christmas time hoping that the latest sea shipment contained some for the Santa gifts. Turkish children gyrated outside on sidewalks with cumbersome wood ones. My grandfather bought hoops, took them apart and wound them smaller to fit into the right size box. He then filled the box with popcorn that he and Grandma had popped as stuffing and padding. What an incredible present to get a hula hoop from the States, put it together and learn how to be cool. I remember standing in the lobby of our apartment, wiggling and shimmying to learn to hula hoop. I also remember eating all the stale, stale, unsalted popcorn that they had been packed in. Heaven, and much better than the theater.

Two summers ago in Istanbul I bought some corn on the street from a vendor. He was in the park outside the Blue Mosque, calling for customers. The corn was impaled upon skewers, and quick boiled then roasted. Corn cobs littered the ground and seating area around him. I bought one, and ate it. It was field corn, starchy and heavy, it would never make good popcorn. But for the Turks it was a novelty and a fun snack, maybe the same as movie popcorn. Not great, but different, and hard to pass up.

So, tonight I am thinking about a Grandpa I love, a country I love, spending an evening with a friend watching a movie about Love, all tied to a bag of exploded starch, good old American movie popcorn.