A few days ago my wife and me discussed (after a few glasses of wine) whether you would get at least some popcorn if you set fire to a field with ripe corn, or if not (my guess), why?
Since none of us had any clue, this avid reader of TSD came here to seek enlightenment.
I doubt it would work with “ripe” corn. Popcorn has to be pretty thoroughly dried before you can pop it, and I don’t know anyone that would leave the corn on the stalks long enough to dry out that much.
Popcorn is an actual type of corn as well. It is different from field corn and sweet corn that are used for other purposes. Popcorn has a smaller and more tightly sealed kernel that allows it to suddenly pop and expand after it is dried and then heated. Not just any corn will pop the same way.
A hot fire can pop field corn. I don’t think the corn stocks burning would provide enough heat long enough to do it. I’ve seen field corn popping in burning shed debris. The corn was on the cob setting on a plank.
What Shagnasty said. For those with an eye to terminology, popcorn (the white comestible) is produced by heating (in oil) the kernels of a variety of corn termed “popping corn”, so called because it is grown for the purpose of popping. It has the characteristics that Shagnasty described. The distinction is not rigidly kept – bags of popping corn (yellow kernels to be popped) are sold as “popcorn” – but note that Orville Redenbacher’s signature product is “Gourmet Popping Corn.”
All’s I gots to offer is when I was a kid I actually planted popcorn kernels from the stuff we had bought at the grocery, and managed to harvest a few ears. When it ripened I let it dry, and then rubbed two ears together to remove the kernels.
I assumed the OP was referring to burning a popcorn field.
I’ve picked popcorn, husked it, and microwaved it on the cob the same day. It does work. But the corn was very dry, and I believe that modern producers harvest earlier to prevent varmint damage and such.
I don’t know about burning, but I read somewhere about how, during a really hot summer, a field of corn spontaniously popped on their stalks.
And that was corn that had already been picked, and dried for some length of time. Corn still attached to the plant has considerably more moisture content, as do the stalks themself – they would not burn nearly as hot as a wooden storage shed.
I don’t believe it.
The highest temperature I’ve ever seen around here (Minnesota) is barely over 100ºF – that’s not hot enough to pop corn. Especially wet corn on the stalks. Even a cornfield on fire would probably not get hot enough to pop the corn – both the corn & the stalks themself are green and high water content, so they won’t burn well during the summer.
That’s what I said.
You probably read it in a book of tall tales. There are versions in various Paul Bunyan stories. In one so much corn pops that it a makes a popcorn blizzard, and a herd of cows freezes to death in the blazing heat because they think it’s snow.
If the corn was growing somewhere that experienced bone dry winter conditions from the end of the growing season onwards, and the field was left unharvested for some reason, I think the stalks could conceivably dry enough to burn very hot indeed (as well as the kernels drying enough to pop), after they had been standing a while - (the plant is an annual, so they would die and dry out).
That’s not a normal scenario though, of course.
Paul Bunyan and the Popcorn Blizzard
(The story actually starts on page 75.)
True, but in the main corn-growing regions of the country, during winter those corn stalks will be standing in snowdrifts. Maybe even completely buried under the snow, here in Minnesota. Theat would tend to slow down the burning.
Actually, I read it as a TRUE!!! freaky weather story. Although, given what’s been said in this thread, it’s probably not as true as they claimed.
Thanks for the insightful replies!
Forget the popcorn; go out and buy a few more bottles of that wine!
And did ya’ll get into this question right after asking: hmm I wonder how people figured out how to do this?
Sure - although I think there are regions around about the places where maize originates that do have wet growing seasons and dry winters.
It also comes in the white variety, which is the tastier of the two, IMO.