Stuff hippies like
I confess: in the States, I shopped at Whole Foods sometimes. The organic thing is a total crock of shit, but they sell beautifully chosen food — and a lot of exotic things I couldn’t get in my regular Stop ‘n’ Shop run. Sometimes I’m willing to pay through the nose for that.
Here, I scratch that same itch at painfully quaint specialty stores. Where I bought this stuff today — fancy, multicolored, fru-fru, popping corn. Zaramama was the Incan goddess of maize (for reals — I just looked it up).
Whenever a food or cosmetic is associated with an Incan deity, slap a hand over your pocket quick — a hippie is surely trying to steal your wallet.
I’m recently reconnecting with popcorn. My dad — who is super health conscious — popped the stuff in shopping bag quantities. With no salt or added fat. It was appallingly healthy and there was lots and lots of it. When I left home, I swore I’d never touch the stuff again.
So I missed out on movie popcorn and the whole “movie popcorn” manufactured scandal. The one where those pinch-faced lefty scolds at the Center for Science in the Public Interest claimed a medium popcorn contains “more fat than a breakfast of bacon and eggs, a Big Mac and fries, and a steak dinner combined.”
Uh huh. That seems pretty implausible, but…whatever. At least you can safely ignore the part where they warn you off cooking it in coconut oil — turns out the stuff is probably pretty good for you. And good for popping corn, because it’s stable at high temperatures.
I have a simpleton’s sullen distrust of the microwave oven, so I pop my corn on the stovetop in a deep iron skillet with a lid. In coconut oil. Then a light spritz of oil to make the salt stick.
Corn pops because of the hard outer shell — the starch inside can super-heat before the shell goes bang. This happens at around 360°F in a delightful crunchy starch esplosion. If you end up with small, chewy popcorn, you cooked it too hot. If you have many unpopped kernels, you didn’t cook it hot enough.
This stuff? I made some a little while ago. Very nice. No unpopped kernels, fluffy and crispy and exceptionally tasty. I looked online, though, and nobody is selling it any cheaper than my shopkeeper. Special occasion popcorn, then.
Good weekend, everyone!
December 4, 2009 — 8:12 pm
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