Most theaters use Flavacol salt and colored coconut oil. If you like that sort of thing.
"Flavacol is composed, after all, of only four ingredients: salt, artificial butter flavor, FD&C Yellow #5 Lake (E102) and Yellow #6 Lake (E110)”
The flavoring is fairly insignificant compared to the salt. The claim is that it’s a special “sliced thin” salt. So, sort of like (good) Kosher salt. Which I use. And I use a tiny bit real butter.
And I certainly don’t need or want the artificial coloring.
I’ll pass.
Kosher salt is generally considered too big, popcorn salt is very, very fine. I think the Good Eats popcorn episode had Alton Brown putting kosher salt into a food processor to make homemade popcorn salt.
It’s not a highly complex thing with the salt. Regular salt is OK on popcorn, it’s just nicer when the salt is a finer texture, because it sticks better and doesn’t fall to the bottom as much. (Plus it probably tastes slightly better because it’s distributed more evenly.)
Should have posted my Grand-mamas recipe:
*Melt half a cup of coconut oil in a large pan.
*Float 2-4 kernels of Orville Redenbacher in the melted oil until they pop.
*Pop 1 cup of corn in the heated oil
*In a separate pan melt 1 pound of Land-O-lakes butter
*Serve popped corn with melted butter on top to your Grandchildren.
*Yeah it’s more like popcorn soup than anything else. So what?
*Be dead years before the heart disease from eating an entire pound of butter on one single batch of popcorn every weekend for years catches up to your Grandkids.
*I’m not kidding about this recipe.
*It was freaking delicious!!!
*Gak! My chest!
Popcorn has been the go-to snack in my family for generations. Depression era farm families could grow their own.
I too am a fan of Whirlypop and even have a salt shaker dedicated to flour salt. I also like ‘mushroom’ (as opposed to ‘butterfly’) popcorn. I buy both here.
If you add the Flavacol to the oil along with the kernels rather than sprinkling it on afterwards then you’ll get a much nicer, evenly salted bowl of popcorn.
Weirder toppings:
- The Capitol Theater in Olympia, WA used to have a squirt bottle of tamari and a shaker of brewer’s yeast at their condiment stand for the popcorn. (Perhaps they still do?) That was a weirdly delicious combo. Squirt, shake, close the bag and shake, repeat if needed. Schedule | OlympiaFilmSociety.org
- I first saw popcorn topped with furikake in Hawaii; also weird, also delicious.