BlatherMunch35: a legacy of popcorn and spreading the butter

My father was fanatical about popcorn and making it was one of the few rituals he observed and I remember every detail of it.

You may think the word fanatical is just more of my tedious and inevitable hyperbolizing, but my old man was a liberal Republican from the Pacific Northwest, where "process is our most important product," and popcorn, for him, was all about process.

He'd put a large skillet on a hot burner with a little corn oil and exactly three (3) kernels of popcorn.

It's as important as just about anything to wait until all three of the test kernels are detonated before, pouring carefully -- not dumping -- the rest of the corn into the hot pan.

Of utmost importance: put on the lid!

Shake the pan as the popping begins slowly, increasing into a madness that’ll make a small child who's unused to such kitchen violence cry out. Then suddenly, except for scattered gunfire, it's over, peace and quiet reigns again.

My dad was always patient waiting for the last shot to be fired. He left the pan on the burner as long as possible to minimalize unexploded ordinance which were then called “old maids” but are now called “widows,” out of respect for older, single women, a demogrphic appreciated more today than then.

He'd repeat this process several times, filling my mother's huge striped brown and beige ceramic bread bowl panful by panful, pouring in melted butter layer by layer, and tossing it all with two table knives.

Then, let me be clear -- and only then -- would he add salt. He believed butter contained enough salt, and only after careful tasting would he add more.

This mixing was a thorough process that took way too long for the hungry and impatient kids haunting the kitchen during this long process, He'd say that there should be butter on each and every piece, and he didn't stop mixing until that was true. 

Then he'd spread an odd collection of wooden salad bowls, ceramic cereal dishes, a stainless mixing bowl or two and mete out the popcorn among them. Then he'd take the bread bowl to his chair and his book.

He was the kind of guy who loved to polish brass, the silver, and the family's shoes; he did it with the same deliberateness that he made popcorn. Since he was a banker and politician, polishing shoes was about limit of his maintenance skills, but he did them methodically and perfectly.

The old man would collect all the scuffed leather shoes in the house -- I can still see the reflection of his face in the shiny toes. He'd let the chickens get fungus, the lawn could jungle-ify, but we ate popcorn with the butter perfectly distributed among the kernels, and we trod through our childhood in shoes that bespoke the decency of our upbringing.

My dad was raised like an only child; born late in his parents’ life, his sisters much older. He was the only boy-child, fair-haired, and treasured. Although they owned the bank in our small town, his parents were Kansas farmers at heart and had no notions of better-than-you. His task, growing up in the Depression as he described it, was to make sure that everyone liked him despite his family's having more. Even though it really wasn't that much more,  he was embarrassed by what they had and it shaped his life. He worshipped at the Shrine of Looking Good and gave everything he had to the Goodwill of Everybody Else.

He was loved by all, and to prove it, he ran for election and never lost a race. His was a frantic schedule of taking temperatures and slapping backs; the immediate family was left at home, barely surviving him years before his death.

As he lay dying years later, I held those soft, hands so deft at spiffing up the surfaces; spreading the butter so that everyone thought they were getting their share; or wiping the tears of somebody else’s woman.

My kids throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and say they like what comes out better than the stuff I make using my dad's skillet and bowls and butter knives. They're full of shit, of course, and have no taste, but I persist performing his measured ritual.

Its yield, I find, is more than a just popcorn. 

Comments

[sparky]

Awesome tribute to your dad, Bla'M.
We used to make popcorn the same way.

My maternal grandfather planted popcorn ears and showed me how to rub two ears together to remove the kernals. My grandmother was not much of a cook if it was something other than meat, potatoes and pie. She would put Crisco in her cast iron stove, add the corn, pop it, and then pour the whole thing into a big brown paper bag. The grease would make the sides of the sack shiny. For a long time, I thought that was what popcorn was supposed to taste like!

Then there was Pop Pop Jiffy Pop.. But it always burned.

[ruforeeal]

Michael, I think this is the best post I have read on this site. Even though you are wrong on most things, you have a great talent for writing.

[waldo]

LOVE this post. I make popcorn EXACTLY the same way, except I find that 5 test kernels works better than 3. The butter knives are unnecessary but the butter distribution is crucial! Microwave popcorn is crap!

[joanie]

Yes, this is a good post. Your's as well Sparky. I didn't know about rubbing two ears together!

We did the cast iron skillet technique, too. The thing I marveled at was my mother's (the popper in our house) ability to hold that heavy skillet and thrust it back and forth. I don't remembet her ever putting butter on it which I why for years I asked for popcorn at the movies - "no butter please."

She used corn oil. Crisco was reserved for pie crust and fried chicken. She, too, served great food. She and dad owned a string of small restaurants from Ballard to Pasco. In Ballard, she competed with Marie of Marie's dressing fame. She had seven booths and they were filled from opening to closing. This was during the war and rationing. The guy that owned the building said he would tear down the adjoining houses and build her a restaurant if she'd run it.

My dad was not the stationary sort. He liked to pick up and go. So they did. Over and over until I came along. With some resentment, he finally settled down.

He lasted three months on the Al-CAn highway. I found the telegram in my mom's saved letters when she died. He missed her and was "coming home."

Your memories bring back feelings, Michael.

[Babar]

Brave of you Michael to throw real stuff like this out to the trolls. Great post. You ought to write a book.

[sparky]

Yes joanie it is a definite memory of mine. The popping corn ears were much smaller and narrower than regular corn, and the kernals were a whitish beige. After harvesting them, they would dry on the racks in my grandparent's basement, along with walnuts and filberts. Two or three ears made a huge amount. My grandpa and I would take the bag of popcorn and a pickle jar of water and go for a "hike" to throw rocks in the creek. Fun times.

[joanie]

My aunt in Oregon had a walnut farm. She used to get the convicts from the local prison(??) to harvest them.

Can you still grow/get popping corn?

I don't think that last post by BART was really BART. Do you? I wish people (Gary?) would stop fraudulent posting. Different names - fine. Stealing names? Juvenile.

[sparky]

Im sure you can still get the seeds..I see it for sale sometimes in fancy gourmet shops.

[eliza]

That's the popping process my mother always used back in the late 1950's. She'd fill up a brown grocery bag for us to take to the movie theater in Maumee, Ohio, where we were embarrassed to bring it in with us, and always coveted that crappy stale popcorn with the fake butter flavoring that stunk up the lobby! We made it that old-fashioned way for years.
Now she's too old to eat popcorn, so I never make it any more. It would be cruel to munch it in front of her.
Makes me hungry for the stuff right now...

[rodman]

I, too, make stove top popcorn. Don't even own a microwave. And I've been using the 3-kernel method for years (don't remember where I read to do it, but it works great). Stove top prep really doesn't take much longer than the microwave mess.

What really cured me of the microwave stuff, though (although I do break down once in a while and make some at the office) is when I cut open a bag of the stuff and saw with my own eyes the glistening orange glob of Crisco-ey goo that they pack in there with the kernels. Maybe your kids will change their minds too once they see what they're going to be eating.

[rodman]

I, too, make stove top popcorn. Don't even own a microwave. And I've been using the 3-kernel method for years (don't remember where I read to do it, but it works great). Stove top prep really doesn't take much longer than the microwave mess.

What really cured me of the microwave stuff, though (although I do break down once in a while and make some at the office) is when I cut open a bag of the stuff and saw with my own eyes the glistening orange glob of Crisco-ey goo that they pack in there with the kernels. Maybe your kids will change their minds too once they see what they're going to be eating.

[nancy]

Beautifully written! I love you and your dad's attention to detail. Thank you.

[ted]

We still use the same method as your dad did. My grandkids call it papa's old school popcorn. Would take paper bags of this popcorn and iced jars of kool aid with us for our families weekly trip to the drive in theatre.

[Drew]

I finally went back to the 20th century and got a stove-top popper called a WhirlyPop. Works pretty good, too. Makes from 4 to 6 quarts, and I can season it anyway I want. The WhirlyPop makers are a family that has been in the popcorn biz in Indiana for a few generations. My dad used to make popcorn a couple of times every weekend, using the old copper-bottom saucespans and a little butter. Didn't do a "kernel test" first; he just seemed to know when it was hot enough, and we rarely had any old-maids. I like the concept of the test though, and I am going to try it with my popper. The proper oil temp window is pretty narrow apparently, and there's few things in life more important than a perfect bowl of popcorn. Using good quality kernels is critical though- I stay away from the store brands entirely.