Some may have been “sugared,” the equivalent of kettle corn, or coated with molasses or caramel. The first commercial popcorn usually had salt and butter on it, much like the popcorn of today. What were the first flavors popcorn flavors people enjoyed? Today, popcorn is the highest selling snack food by volume.Popcorn is exceptionally popular – according to a recent study, 92% of people surveyed like popcorn.Popcorn is one of the healthiest snack/fun foods around – high in fiber and low in calories.Popcorn was the second snack food known to Americans.The first use of corn by humans was popcorn.Today the microwavable variety has taken over for at-home viewing, with bagged popcorn right behind it. Movie theater popcorn became a staple, and still is, even in living room “theaters” at home. Movie house owners were strapped for cash and popcorn was the answer. Others let them sell popcorn in the lobbies.

Their sentiment evolved gradually – some allowed vendors to walk up and down the aisles selling their popcorn, much like vendors at ballgames still do today. Movie house proprietors tolerated them, but didn’t want them actually inside where their popcorn would litter the floor. Popcorn vendors appeared outside movie houses since the beginning of movies. When did people start eating popcorn in movie theaters? Popcorn took off in the mid-1800s and found a place in the budding American fun-food kingdom at the end of the 19th century, thanks, in part, to industrialization and the making of portable popcorn poppers.

BUT – the Colonist did eat popcorn, most notably as cereal, served with cream and sugar. When the settlers arrived, they were not greeted by bowls of popcorn, as some suggested, and no evidence exists that popcorn was served at the first Thanksgiving table. Native Americans popped corn for untold years, by placing the kernels in hot sand, as only one example.

Movie theater and popcorn