lines of flight

Popcorn is an amazing food. Kernels of whole grain goodness that pop to unique, tasty shapes. Like snowflakes with substance. It tastes so great all salty and crunchy and chewy and in the case of my recent addiction, coated in white cheddar powder. We were eating it bag by organic bag-full when the “popcorn lung” scare hit mainstream media.

Even tho the scare concerns the ConAgra-fake-buttered type of microwave popcorn and not the heath-food-store-bought version we’d been consuming like popcorn-crazed maniacs, the story did make popcorn suddenly seem a little less wonderful.

Enter the environmentally aware, DIY-ers at lighterfootstep.com, who recently urged readers to Dump Dangerous Diacetyl by Making Your Own Microwave Popcorn. Diacetyl is the fake butter flavor that causes life-threatening respiratory and other problems.

This is all you have to do to make your own microwave popcorn.

You’ll need a brown paper lunch sack about 1/4 cup of loose, organic popcorn kernels. Measure the kernels into your bag. Add one teaspoon of olive oil and popcorn salt to taste. Fold the top of the bag and shake gently to mix.

Press most of the air out of the bag. Secure with two staples (they won’t spark in most ovens) or tape loosely, leaving room for steam to vent. Place flat on a microwave-safe plate and heat on a high setting until the pops have slowed down to about three seconds apart. it will take less than four minutes.

Within hours of reading this recipe, I had to try it, and the results were fantastic (see photo). The recipe is extra simple, but can be refined with different proportions, flavors and methods.

One helpful tip from the comments on the lighterfootstep site was about popcorn salt and the need for it to be very powdery. I put Hawaiian sea salt ( “the white gold of Kalaupapa,” said Auntie Puna) in a little electric grinder and blended it to a flour-like consistency. Added about half a teaspoon to the kernels before popping with the result being a perfect coating of salt on the corn (was actually a little too much salt; subsequent times I used less).

M was very impressed and immediately requested I make another batch, which came out excellent as well. Each time there were a couple burned kernels, but even those tasted less nasty than the burned kernels in a bag of regular microwave popcorn. There also seemed to be fewer unpopped kernels.

This is so easy to do, and so inexpensive! why would anyone buy microwave popcorn anymore? I tried adding finely grated Parmesan cheese before popping, but it was not very good. Hopefully more experimentation yields tastier results; maple syrup sounded good, also maybe red pepper or garlic salt, and I’ll be sure to throw together the local fave hurricane popcorn… yum… maybe this weekend.