You know popcorn? You may not know popcorn. It shouldn’t cost $58.50 and leave you sick after watching The Matix XII at the Come On In, What Are The Odds Of Getting Ill-plex. It‘s not the ‘as much fun’ (actually far more fun) ‘to make than it is to eat’ stuff. Although the J. Pop experience was always oddly…hot, I won’t lie. And it ain’t Orville Fudruckers Buttery Microwave in a 2 minute ‘bing!!’ all done folded bag. The waxy weirdness of the insides, burnt clumps here and there, dry tasteless stuff elsewhere.
Grow up! People been trying to mess up popcorn since Charles Cretors invented the popcorn maker out of his old Chicago candy store in like 1890. Get in touch with this Nature’s wonder y’all!l Ima tell you how.
Good p’corn needs the stove. Period. Why did our moms get a gadget or machine for everything? Keeping away from dirty nature, I guess. Oh well – Greatest Generation, they did win WWII etc. We can forgive ‘em for wanting to get out the kitchen and live! But. Corn goes on the stove.
Pot. Oil (Google tell you which kind) and you can throw in some bacon fat/lardo or butter because umami. Fair measure of salt. I get it – salt bad. But salt ‘properly seasons’ food. Food’s swizzle stick. To counteract the bad, go for a nice long walk every day. Ahem.
Gring in some pepper. (Or buy a pepper grinder and some peppercorns and then grind in. C’mon!! Thro’ out that powered pepper from 2011. How old are you??!?) Now, there is a secret ingredient. It is lemon juice. Not ReaLemon, that of the plastic lemon-looking thing with the green screw top. Actual lemon juice, a good bit, squeeze into the oil/lardo/salt/pepper mix. Set it all on the stove on lowwwwwww. Low. Then put in the corn.
Now go watch a Next Gen or something on Netflix…45 min. By that time — Data having let go of the dream of becoming fully human, somehow becoming more human in the process — the kernels (not colonels) are dark brown and nutty and ready, come what may. Ready to get rocked. Now you gotta put down your phone thingy and get up.
What is needed is a blast of the highest heat known to your stove, you at the controls. There’s a lid on the pot and there’s a towel over the lid and you’re shaking that pot like it’s never got shook, its shoes are falling off, it’s missing appointments, it’s making promises it’ll never keep, it is giving and giving, corn popping like absolute crazy, shake shake shake shake and then…
It’s over. Last chord in Day In The Life… bonggggnngggg….
That’s it! You will like the result.
Old Man Wrong
