14 DAY TRIAL // A long, long time ago – OK, it wasn't that long ago, it was just before the holidays – we talked about how deodorants and antiperspirants help us stay fresh. Today, we're going to discuss one other of life's little mysteries that I dare say concerns us all: how corn becomes popcorn.
If we're going to be honest here, we have to admit that, but for a rather restricted group of guys and gals, pretty much everybody loves and adores popcorn. It's the perfect snack when enjoying a movie with friends and family, and in this day and age, it comes in all sorts of enticing flavors.
The thing is that, as popular as it might be, popcorn is very poorly understood. Otherwise put, there are very few people who know why it is that, when heated, corn undergoes a most magnificent transformation and comes out looking all curvaceous and mouth-watering.
The mythical explanation for this wondrous phenomenon
In case you didn't know, corn was first domesticated by indigenous peoples in the Americas in prehistoric times. Hence, for entertainment purposes alone, let's take a minute to talk about a rather odd Native American belief about how this snack is made.
It a nutshell, this old belief says that a teeny tiny god lives inside each and every corn kernel. Heating the kernel terribly angers this little fellow up to the point when he simply bursts out of his home, possibly looking to kick the people upsetting him in their dorsal side.
Needless to say, there are no gods living inside corn kernels. On the contrary, the fact of the matter is that there is a perfectly reasonable and as scientific as it gets explanation for why corn pops when heated, and it does not involve any pissed off deities that, for some reason, live in kernels.
How and why corn explodes and becomes popcorn
The first thing you have to know is that not all corn varieties pop. Thus, the corn variety that has a natural talent for going bananas when heated and that we like to chew on when watching movies is known to the scientific community as Zea mays var. everta.
Like other grains, this variety of corn comprises a hard hull and a fairly starchy and dense interior that holds a drop of water. When the corn is heated, this water turns to Steam and turns the starch inside the kernel into goo. Eventually, the pressure inside the grain raises up to the point when the hull burst open.
It is estimated that, before a corn kernel becomes popcorn, the pressure inside it ups to an impressive 135 pounds per square inch (about 60 kilograms per 6.5 square centimeters). The reason why the whole grain does not just disintegrate is because the hull is freakishly strong and holds its ground.
Thus, the steam and the starch turned into goo by it can only work their way through holes and crack in the hull. Once outside the grain, the starch cools and forms the white mass that we enjoying snacking on. What this means is that popcorn is basically regular corn that is turned inside out and whose insides were seriously inflated by exposure to heat.
What's really interesting is that, depending on how the hull breaks open to let out the grain's heated guts, we get two types of popcorn: butterfly and mushroom. Check out the photos below to get a better idea of what these popcorn varieties look like, and be sure to join us again next week for another Freaky Friday Mystery.
