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August 2008
What’s Popping?
Dear Friends,
With a little chill in the evening air these days, our family has slipped back into that familiar and wonderful routine of making popcorn as a snack almost every night. Of course, our popcorn tastes so good because it is Cedar County popcorn grown by the Pinkelman family.
But this nice tradition began when I was a kid, and popcorn was on the late evening menu nearly every fall and winter evening. Carrying that tradition on in our family hasn’t been too difficult.
My love of popcorn was reinforced a few years back when I had the privilege of covering the longest continuous running festival in Nebraska, North Loup’s 107-year-old Popcorn Days.
Donna and I made the trek down to the Loup River valley in late August, to take part in the festival and interview a few of the local farmers who raised popcorn in the valley and the "poppers" who made over 30,000 bags of popcorn in the town’s fire hall during the festival and handed it out free to hungry visitors.
When you show up for popcorn days in North Loup, you don’t need to ask for directions. You just follow your nose. That familiar, mouth-watering fragrance of popping corn wafts from the little fire hall, where volunteers pop up to one ton of locally raised popcorn. They use a gas-operated popping machine, mixing the popcorn, butter and salt with scoop shovels in a trough that looks a lot like a stainless steel feed bunk.
As a fine example of a significant celebration of Nebraska’s unique and diverse agriculture, Popcorn Days started out as a way to honor the popcorn farmers of the valley, who have been growing popcorn there since the early 1890s. One North Loup farmer, Chuck Zangger, told us that his grandfather started growing popcorn around North Loup back in 1924, when the valley was considered the popcorn center of the world, with a myriad of growers and processors.
Zangger told us that Nebraska is still the number one popcorn production state in the U.S., with nearly 45,000 acres in production. Around 1500 acres are still grown in the Loup River valley, and Zangger’s family has embarked in a new related industry, growing hybrid popcorn seed.
He said that the cool August nights in the Loup River valley and in other parts of Nebraska help the plants convert sugars to starch, making for popcorn seed that pops better. That’s probably why it also grows quite well here in northeast Nebraska, although there is not a significant amount of acres planted to popcorn around here.
The Loup River valley may have been the center of the popcorn world since the 1890s, but I am told that the oldest ears of popcorn were found in Bat Cave, New Mexico, dated at 4000 years old. Some popcorn seed has been dated as far back as 5600 years, and when a few kernels were dropped in hot oil, they still popped.
Americans consume a whopping 17.3 billion quarts of popcorn a year, at a rate of 68 quarts of popped corn per person. And I’m sure our family has contributed to the up side of that average for many years.
So, this autumn, I encourage you to get over to St. James and purchase some of that good Cedar County popcorn and celebrate a Nebraska tradition that is even older than the Cornhuskers.
Hope you have a good week.
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
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