The BBC Future columnist talks about a number one treat among moviegoers and lovers of culinary leisure - and shares the secrets of his cooking.

Popcorn, this crispy corn dainty, flavored with butter and caramel or salt, is now experiencing a peak of its popularity.

On average, an American consumes about 50 liters of popcorn a year, and even in the UK, where chips have traditionally been in high demand, popcorn sales have skyrocketed.

In 2016, research firm Mintel found that the level of sales of popcorn in the United Kingdom over the past five years increased by 169%.

The Internet is simply full of fables about the origin of the airy delicacy. You can read, for example, that the Native Americans brought it on the first Thanksgiving Day or that the American colonists ate it for breakfast.

However, the real history of popcorn is much more interesting.

Undoubtedly, the inhabitants of North and South America ate popcorn long before the emergence of Europeans on these continents.

Popcorn is made from a special kind of maize, and not from ordinary corn, eaten in the form of cobs and has no ability to explode.

Archaeologists have found it in many caves and ancient dwellings in the southwestern United States and in more southern areas.

Botanist Thomas Harper Goodspeed, who founded the Botanical Garden of the University of California, once received as a gift from a Chilean archaeologist ancient maize grains.

"Once, sitting at my home in Berkeley, I thought: why do not I experiment with this corn that was collected long before the Incas appeared?" - he writes in his book "Plant Hunters" In the Andes).

"I put a couple of grains in a baking dish and heated them on an electric stove. To my great surprise, this corn, whose age is about a thousand years old, swelled and burst as fast as the grains from last year's harvest, which can be bought at a nearby grocery store, "- he shares his impressions.

Strong grains all these years remained intact in its solid shell, which in this version of maize is four times stronger than the rest.

Popcorn "explodes" due to the strength of its peel, and also due to its ability to quickly conduct heat inside the starch-containing grains.

In this case, the sheath can withstand heating to a high temperature and does not burn.

As the temperature rises, the water inside the grain turns into steam and begins to press on the skin from the inside.

The pressure rises, and when at 200 ° C it reaches a value nine times the atmospheric pressure, the shell breaks, the pressure leveling, and the starch with steam break out.

Scientists have found out that the size of the swollen grain can be doubled using a vacuum pump to reduce the air pressure in the vessel in which the grains are heated.

When they begin to explode, their size will increase more than usual.

Make popcorn is quite possible without any adaptations - just hold the corn cob over the fire.

However, there is an opinion that the special value of this delicacy lies in the spectacularity of its preparation.

In China, for example, some street vendors are still preparing popcorn at the edge of the road, using a tightly closed cast iron pot with grains inside.

He turns over the fire, and when the pressure indicator shows that the time has come, the seller throws a long canvas bag on his neck, and then, with a sharp movement, drops the lid.

Because of the pressure drop, the granules burst sharply and are fired into the bag, like small cannonballs.

One of the first commercial vending machines for making popcorn was familiar to most of us in the way appeared in 1885.

He was invented by a confectioner from the State of Illinois named Charles Crertors, who experimented with a peanut roasting machine.

Whimsical devices Krytorza worked on tiny steam engines, and corn kernels were heated in a mixture of melted lard and butter.

A small mechanical clown named Mr. Rosti Toasti twirled a pen, amusing the audience.

In the book of the historian of cooking Andrew Smith "Poppornovaya culture" (Popped Culture) tells how Kritorz brought his van with popcorn at the World Exhibition in 1893.

"As C Cretors Company later stated, he and his assistants called customers as follows:" Try a new sensation of taste! Is free! Popcorn, cooked in oil, is a revolutionary new method, just patented! A bag of popcorn for free to everyone! ", - writes Smith.

"Around the van, people immediately gathered. The clown at the top of the machine for cooking popcorn twirled the pen without a break, "- he continues.

"As the alluring smell of popcorn and butter spread through the fair, the people were coming more and more. They were attracted not only by delicacy, but also by a bright show, which the entrepreneur managed to arrange thanks to steam engines and a fun clown, "- describes Smith those events.

Cretors Company is still the leading producer of popcorn machines.

Today, popcorn is also popular among those who prefer healthy food.

Many consider it a salty and fatty delicacy, which is usually eaten in a movie or at a carnival.

However, the fact that this whole-grain product with a low content of fat and salt (before it is fried or seasoned), instantly used by marketers.

According to the report of Mintel, sales of popcorn in the UK increased sharply precisely because of its image of a useful product (if you do not take into account the fact that popcorn is most often sold with a lot of additives).

(The best way to get exactly what you want is to make popcorn at home using a special device or just on the stove. ) Practice shows that such explosive properties are not only corn.

It turns out that you can prepare an airy treat from many hard-shell grains, including rice, wheat, barley and amaranth.

However, the grains of these plants increase in volume not as much as corn.

Go to the movies and order a portion of air amaranth? Sounds unlikely. Popcorn firmly and permanently settled in our hearts. And stomachs.