Okay, here’s a Wikipedia article on Kettle corn. There’s information and a picture.
What I want to know is what you call it.
Kettle corn. Candy corn are those small, orange and yellow and white kernals of mega-sweetness you find around Halloween.
I did an impromptu office poll. Three people have never heard of this kind of popcorn and one knew what I referred to but didn’t call it kettle corn and couldn’t tell me what he called it (?). One person got confused and thought it was the kind of popcorn with a hard candy-like shell on it, like caramel popcorn in Crunch n’ Munch or Cracker Jack boxes.
Some people do not go to enough fairs.
I went about 35 years before I knew about kettle corn. No loss.
Here’s something for you. Screaming Yellow Zonkers
Well I said Kettle corn.
People in the US tend to call sugar popcorn Kettle corn.
However, Kettle corn is popcorn that is made in a Kettle. It doesn’t have to have sugar. (but it usually does.)
That was my thought. I see kettle corn at almost every State/County/Streetfair – they usually make a big production out of it, with a giant kettle and an oar-sized stirring implement.
“Godawful crap” should have been listed, but I would have accepted “insult to the tastebuds.”
I thought a kettle was a vessel you warmed water in to make tea, cf the song title Be Like the Kettle And Sing; typically, it has a black plastic handle on the top of it and a spout on one side. You fill it with water and put it on a stove burner. When the water is heated, a whistling sound is emitted from the spout. In Canada, we have long had electric kettles.
Whenever I made popcorn on the stove (back in those pre-popcorn maker days), I used a pot.
Kettle corn being made at a street fair
I suppose you might technically call it “caldron corn”, but that name doesn’t have quite the same appeal.
Awful wasn’t one of the options, so I went with kettle corn.
It’s kettle corn, if made from scratch and sold at a fair or roadside stand.
The packaged, microwaveable product Wikipedia describes, involving sucralose (!), is garbage.
Don’t care what anyone else says, I love the stuff.
I never realized there was a difference between this and caramel corn, which is what I would have called it.
Caramel corn has a stronger flavor, kettle corn is more subtle.
Absolutely! Fresh kettle corn is the stuff, microwaved instant is an abomination before the deity of your chosing.
I’m with RealityChuck. It nauseates me. The wonderful, tantalizing aroma that is fresh, buttery popcorn is turned into the cloying stink of sugar-drenched pencil shavings.
Is it any relation to this stuff (comes out around christmas here in oz)? http://www.popcorn.com.au/catalogue/c113/c141/p812
Can’t abide the stuff … to me popcorn is a savory not a sweet. I like mine popped in olive oil, with a touch of garlic salt. Butter and plain salt is nice too, but once we made it with olive instead of plain veg oil and it was excellent, so we started making it with olive oil only. Adds a bit of depth to the corn flavor that is nice.
Sounds like the same thing.