popcorn is nothing new in the americas, and neither is its popularity.
A thousand years ago, Indians of Peru popped corn on hot stones or in boiling oil.
They prized it so much that buried bags of popcorn with their dead.
Aztec Indians of Mexco not only ate popcorn but also strewed it befor their gods, and girls strung wreaths ofit for their hair.
Indians fo Massachusetts Bay donated a bushel of the snowy stuff to the Pilgrim colony's Thanks giving feast 1630.
Not until recently did anyone really know what makes popcorn pop.
Scientists, using powerful microscopes, have found that the process is not simply a splitting of the shell, but rather an exploding of grains within that shell.
Each kernel of popcorn contains about ten million grains of starch and a tiny amount of water.
When heat convert the water into steam of enough pressure ,all ten million starch grains burst apart.
In effect, it is like a miniature bomb explosion.