Summer vacation is coming to an end, with the start of the schoolyear waiting in the wings. Beginnings can be exciting times, but sometimes a little scary and difficult: a new place, unknown challenges, people you don’t yet know. This takes time, trust, and the awareness that you need lots of patience and hope for the “new” to become familiar and welcoming.
This week’s Newsletter is devoted to that hard, shriveled corn that you received in your box (or will receive in the coming weeks), the popcorn that proves that if you give even the hardest, most shriveled beginning a little warmth, patience and trust, it will bounce, burst forth and find its very own inner softness to bring joy and pleasure.
Traditionally, the end of each summer heralds the long-awaited Popcorn Season, as your boxes bring smaller and harder corncobs than usual. Please don’t try to cook them in water, and don’t toss them out figuring Chubeza’s crop went bad this week. These are actually very successful corncobs that gladden the hearts of young and old with rare, delectable treats. Hurray for popcorn!
To celebrate this joyous corn creation, we are proud to present our traditional Popcorn Newsletter. Settle back in your seats and enjoy the show!
Back around 3500 BC in a cave in North America (somewhere central-west of today’s New Mexico), the guys were hanging out together, glued to the TV of the era, the blazing bonfire. As the flames danced and brought joy to their hearts, they had to nosh on something. But for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery, they somehow did not polish off everything from their plates. Remains of that late-night-nosh were discovered over 5000 years later by archaeologists in 1948, in what became known as world’s oldest popcorn. (It still looked quite crunchy and yummy, but a tad too stale to nibble on.)
Popcorn is indeed a special variety of corn, small and extremely hard. The cobs were seeded in March along with the first round of corn, but after the plants grew dark red-bearded cobs, we shut off the water and allowed the cobs, smaller than the sweet corn variety, to dry on the stalk. Around last week we picked the dry, hard cobs and stored them in our warehouse for further drying and hardening. How wonderful to nibble on a snack bearing a history of thousands of years of noshing!
Popcorn comes in many colors and sizes. Here are a few:
A particularly cutie is strawberry popcorn, which looks like this:
Native Americans used popcorn even before they discovered the corn we know and love so well. They probably fell onto popcorn by chance, as some random kernel rolled into the fire and suddenly popped. This surely led to attempts to reenact the wonder, and later to make it an institution. In ancient times, they would roast the popcorn by heating the cobs over a direct flame or in a pit in the ground filled with sand and heated to a very high temperature. The cobs were placed into the pit whole, and the kernels would pop on the cob, wrapped in its sheaf and protected from the sand. Prehistoric cooks also made special utensils to roast this crackling snack, clay pots with legs to place atop the fire.
Primeval Americans used the popcorn not only as nosh. They made soup and beer out of it, and used popcorn in ritual ceremonies as well as for jewelry and headdress ornaments. Tlaloc, the Aztec God of Rain and Fertility, was adorned with popcorn-string necklaces, and the God of Water and Protector of Fishermen would receive an offering of “hailstones” made from popcorn. Europeans who arrived ashore were also welcomed with gifts of popcorn necklaces, and to this day there are those who decorate their Christmas trees with fresh, fragrant popcorn.
One modern, unconventional popcorn-based experiment—which ultimately failed—was to use popcorn as an ecological, biodegradable substitute for Styrofoam packing material. You must admit that this is a great idea, yet sadly the popcorn’s natural appeal attracted rodents and other pests to the party. The popcorn totally lost its beneficial packing qualities when wet, and was prone to flammability. Alas.
Popcorn, or in its scientific name, Zea mays averta, is a subspecies of flint corn. Flint corn got its name from its rock-hard shell, one of the required components for popping. Also required are a proper level of moisture and a high level of starch within the kernel. Due to the kernel’s hard shell, when heated, the moisture trapped inside turns to steam and the pressure builds up. The starch inside the kernel coagulates and becomes soft and pliable. The pressure continues to mount until reaching the cracking point of the hull: the shell forcefully explodes, and steam bursts forth, exposing the soft starch. The starch expands and dries rapidly to become the dry, crunchy foam we call popcorn.
Watch this movie demonstrating the process in very dramatic slo-mo:
Some Tips:
– For the foam to dry quickly, place the kernels in a pot in a thin layer to create crispy popcorn that will not reabsorb the moisture from the pot.
– FYI, popped popcorn kernels expand exponentially beyond their original size. Two tablespoons (25 grams) of raw popcorn kernels yield 2½ cups of the popped product!
– In its natural form, popcorn is an excellent choice for a healthy snack. Air-popped popcorn is naturally high in dietary fiber, low in calories and fat, and is both sodium and sugar free. This, of course, relates to clean, homemade popcorn, minus the addition of butter and oil, salt or caramel that transform it from a handsome prince to a scary toad.
Storage: Popcorn kernels might look tough, but they won’t stay that way unless you treat them properly. Storing popcorn in the fridge may dry out the kernels or make it too moist to allow popping. Best to keep popcorn kernels in a cool, dark cupboard away from heat, moisture and light. It is recommended to separate the kernels from the cob and store in sealed jar, ceramic container or well-sealed tin.
Here’s a demonstration of how to separate popcorn kernels, starring: Chubeza Popcorn as himself, AND Talia’s hands:
You can prepare the popcorn in a paper bag in the microwave (use only a handful of kernels, and remember that they pop to 10 times their size), or in a pot with a little oil, “like in the old days” (one layer of kernels on the bottom of the pot is just right).
Wishing you all a pleasant End of Vacation, and the beginning of a happy new year. We continue to hope for good news!
Alon, Bat-Ami, Dror and the entire Chubeza team
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WHAT’S IN THIS WEEK’S BOXES?
Monday: Malabar spinach/New Zealand spinach/kale, slice of pumpkin/butternut squash, lettuce, long Thai lubia, edamame/okra/onions, popcorn, cherry tomatoes/red bell peppers/hot peppers, eggplant/carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes.
Large box, in addition: Scallions/chives, parsley/nana/basil, potatoes.
FRUIT BOXES: Pears, apples, nectarines, mango. Large box: Larger quantities of all the above, plus kobo.
Wednesday: Malabar spinach/New Zealand spinach/kale, slice of pumpkin/butternut squash, lettuce, long Thai lubia, onions/scallions/chive, popcorn, cherry tomatoes, eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes.
Large box, in addition: Parsley/nana/basil, potatoes,.edamame/okra/red bell peppers/hot peppers
FRUIT BOXES: Pears, apples, nectarines, mango. Large box: Larger quantities of all the above, plus kobo/pomegranate,