Popcorn

The art of popcorn-making is dying. I remember when my father passed on the secret of popcorn-making to me one night. We were standing by the stove and he was shaking the pot over the open oven flame.

Not too much oil.
Not too much heat.
Shake. Shake. Shake.
And the fourth secret, which I am not at liberty to disclose.

I was never much good at making popcorn, despite that I know the fourth secret. The last time I tried to make popcorn from corn-kernels over an open flame, I wasted a bag of popcorn and about an hour and a half. There were times, though, that I got it right and the corn popped perfectly. I dubbed myself "The Popcorn King". I seem to have lost the knack and thus the popcorn throne. My shake-the-pot technique has been found wanting - and then there's the fourth thing, which I don't do very well. But I can't tell you what that is.

So now I do what the majority of the popcorn-eating population do. Either I buy it ready-made from a popcorn vendor, or I use the microwaveable stuff.

The popcorn-vendor popcorn is not bad. The machine spits out a decent popcorn, but then it is a risky business. You have to be careful from whom you buy - and I doubt they do the fourth thing, which as you know by now, I can't share. Trust me, I doubt they do it. At least not in public.

Microwaveable popcorn is certainly the easiest method. It is quick, reliable and tasty. The manufacturers have hit on the right blends of fatty oils, preservatives and salt. You can buy the salt reduced or salt free varieties, but then, what's the point? Believe it or not, there is actually an art to making microwaveable popcorn. Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's an art. It's more of a skill.

You see, the popcorn manufacturers can't test every microwave on the market, so the instructions are very general, "...on the highest setting for between 2 and 4 minutes". In my microwave, four minutes is popcorn murder. Complete incineration. Now, I don't know about you, but to me it's much more fun creating black, inedible kernels while standing over a stove furiously shaking the pot and doing the fourth thing (which I can't reveal) than it is standing there watching the popcorn burn inside the microwave.

You really have to have the knack, even when using the microwave. It is certainly a matter of trial and error. You have to learn how your microwave behaves. You have to feel what it feels. See what it sees. Understand its psyche and get inside its mind. A microwave is like a person, each one is different. If you understand one, it doesn't mean that you understand them all. My microwave, for example, is schizophrenic. Sometimes two minutes is enough. Sometimes it needs up to three. Four minutes is completely out of the question and even three can be totally lethal.

So I stand by the microwave. Watching. Listening. Feeling. And when my instinct tells me that the popcorn is ready, despite the heavy popping sounds, I quickly flick it off. Too long and the popcorn is toast. Not long enough and I end up with more crunchy, teeth-killing kernels than I would like. The timing has to be perfect to get the right ratio of edible popcorn to unpopped kernels.

But even when the microwave gets it right, it's a real shame I can't do that fourth thing.