What started with the Kernels chain, way back in the 80s, has matured into a full-fledged snack trend. Fueled in part by the fact that popcorn is a whole grain, this trend is also buoyed by the dodgy reputation that fried snacks such as potato chips have developed.
A slew of popped fresh proof that this trend is hot exists. For instance:
• this great sounding recipe from 101 Cookbooks
• fancy popcorn poppers like this one sold at Williams-Sonoma
• fantastic gourmet flavoured popcorns from 479° Popcorn (try the ginger sesame caramel – it’s my fav!)
• the sudden appearance of Popcorn Indiana on every store shelf
• the launch of the Pop-corn Seasonings line by Clubhouse.
All this is evidence that this trend is exploding!
Are you a popcorn fan? If so, are you a stove top purist or a microwave maven?
Welcome to my blog! Have a look around, feel free to post some comments and 
Please subscribe to my blog and never miss a posting.
Hungry for info on the latest food trends? 
Dana, what do those pop corn seasonings taste like? Are they the same as the stuff offerd at the movies?
Yup, that’s almost exactly what they’re like. So, if you like that stuff, you’ll like these seasonings.
I am a big popcorn fan. I have a selection of seasonings for the kids but I like mine popped in a hot chili oil and just seasoned with sea salt.
We have a machine similar to the one you show. An oil popper with the little sweeping arm to keep the kernals moving. I gave away my hot air popper – I found it made it so dry it was like cardboard!
You know I love popcorn. Stove top is my preference since microwave versions taste a bit fake to me. They’ve come a long way, but still, I prefer the stove top version. After all, making it is half the fun!
I’m not about to dump Club House on my popcorn, but the 101 Cookbook recipe sounds fantastic. Guess I’ll have a summer of movie watching and culinary experimentation ahead of me!
Popcorn crosses my lips from time to time as well. We have known and loved each other for a very long time. I would have to agree that stove top is best but I confess that I do microwave it as well. The no muss no fuss feature is the attraction there.
Barb, you and I are on the same page there – I find with a popcorn loving kid in the house that the microwave stuff gets used often. I really like the idea of the Cuisinart popper but I just don’t need another appliance to keep clean and organized.
I’m a huge popcorn fan and I’m presently using the Cuisinart popper. I love it! I was concerned about storage too, but I made room for it because I love popcorn so much. I do not, however, enjoy microwave popcorn because it tastes like a mouthful of chemicals to me. Blech!
Thanks to Alton Brown, I learned that you can make your own microwave popcorn by placing the oil, salt and kernels in a brown paper bag and stapling it shut. Quick, convenient and no clean up! You can find the exact “recipe” somewhere on the FoodNetwork site.
Off to check out 479 degrees … sounds right up my alley, thanks, Dana1
Diva, you can get the 479 products at Dean and Deluca on Spring Street. That’s where I bought it a couple of weeks ago in fact.
Excellent, that will save on the shipping. Thanks again!
I love popcorn but can’t have it in my house now because my older son recently got braces. He was so devastated when the orthodontist told him, “No popcorn,” that I made a rash and completely regrettable promise right there not to keep it in the house until he got his braces off.
What on earth was I thinking?
Don’t tell your son but my son (who has full train tracks up and down) eats popcorn every day. His ortho didn’t like the idea at first but Oliver keeps his braces clean and we’ve had no wires breaking or anything so it seems okay.
[...] Topline Trends Tuesday: Popcorn popularity « Dana McCauley’s food blog [...]
I LOVE popcorn!! I like some of the seasonings out there, but some are just NASTY! We love Kernals, but don’t get it often (X-dressed and any of their caramel flavours are my favourites). I think that I might need to get out the air popper tonight, no microwave stuff in my house blech. Our air popper isn’t fancy and only cost about $15 but it works great…better than our neighbour’s fancy schmancy one appears to work! I hate stovetop, the oil taste is not my thing, and I have memories of burnt stovetop popcorn from when I was a kid, before we had an airpopper. I love to experiment with new flavours, so I think I’ll have to check the sites you mentioned.
I LOVE POPCORN!! and it’s great to find other fans of the good stuff. I have a Whirly-Pop stove top popper and it makes great popcorn and it is awesome. for a quickie,I use Orville Redenbacher tender white(yummmY) i have about 4 different air poppers but the popcorn is too dry to me. Try a thin layer of ranch in a ziplock and shake it up for a change of taste.
Great post, VEry informative…
Excellent site, keep up the good work, my colleagues would love this. I read not a few blogs every day, and for the most part people lack substance, but not in this case. I just wanted to make a short comment to say I’m glad I found your blog, I’m gonna bookmark this danamccauley.wordpress.com web site. Thanks
Hey excellent blog, very impressed!
fairly valuable material, all in all I imagine this is worthy of a book mark, thanks a lot