Popcorn is more than just a modern-day healthy, whole-grain snack. In North America, popcorn’s popularity dates back to the late 1800s, when horse-drawn popcorn carts first made an appearance on urban streets.
But this ancient grain has a much longer history as a celebrated food. More than a decade ago, scientists found popcorn cobs in Peru that proved popcorn is at least 6,000 years old.
Dolores Piperno, a paleobotanist with the Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Insitute, told NPR that ALL early corn was popcorn, which “helped lay the foundations for the Aztec empire.” Piperno added popcorn was “around for millennia before these other forms of corn.”
According to The Popcorn Board, a Chicago-based nonprofit, “Popcorn was an important food for the Aztec Indians, who also used popcorn as decoration for ceremonial headdresses, necklaces and ornaments on statues of their gods, including Tlaloc, the god of rain and fertility.”
Learn more:
NPR: The Oscar For Best Snack Goes To … Popcorn, The 6,000-Year-Old Aztec Gold
