Pop Goes the Weasel

Talk of all things Hoosier has been much in the news lately, and speaking as one born and bred, I’ll discuss a topic unseen so far. We Hoosiers like to eat. Tenderloin sandwiches, watermelons and field-grown tomatoes are not safe around us. But I’ve seen nothing in the news about our favorite snack food—popcorn.

The internet tells me that Indiana recently surpassed Nebraska in producing the nation’s most popcorn. Brian Lehman of Berne, Indiana, and Amish Country Popcorn, grows mushroom and butterfly varieties on all 97,000 acres of his land. It’s his contribution to the 8-9 million pounds of popcorn per year from Indiana.

My experiences with popcorn began as soon as I was old enough to eat it. One or more nights per week, Mom would pull out the popcorn pan, pour oil in the bottom and fill it with a layer of the bright yellow stuff we loved. The technique was simple—keep sliding the pan back and forth over the heat until the popped product filled the pan and raised the lid. Mom poured it into a big bowl and then baptized it with plenty of melted butter and salt. I swear, there’s no better smell or taste in the world.

When I was in the First Grade, our class took a field trip to the nearby Princeton Farms Popcorn Company, in Princeton, Indiana, the largest popcorn producer in the area. I don’t remember a thing about the tour, except they gave us each a bag of popcorn at the end. Years later, the Princeton Farms warehouse caught fire. My nephew, Mike Cain, the kind of journalist I want to be when I grow up, covered the story for the Princeton newspaper. His lead sentence: “Somebody should have brought the butter.” He said as the fire burned the warehouse, he could hear thousands of pounds of popcorn popping inside, like gunfire from a tiny army. The sound and that heavenly smell traveled for miles. (Movie theatres figured out that smell thing a long time ago.)

Imagine my surprise when I married and found WHITE popcorn existed. My husband’s family preferred it and popped it using a contraption with a crank on the pot’s side, turning an arm inside as it heated on the stove.

My husband’s sister, whom I’d describe as a popcorn snob (maybe connoisseur is a kinder description,) discovered a variety I’d never heard of: Lady Finger. While still living in northern Indiana, she became friendly with a farmer who introduced her to the fancy stuff. She fell madly in love with it: white kernels, each the size of a grain of rice, and pea-sized when popped, with no hulls. Since the cobs resembled fat, hand-rolled cigars, they were too small to be machine-shucked, so the farmer hand-shucked all the ears from a special patch he grew just for his favorite customer. The farmer’s hard work paid off. My sister-in-law bought his entire crop—all 100+ pounds of it.

She meticulously poured the kernels into quart-sized zip-lock bags, then filled big plastic storage tubs with the bulging bags and stored them in her attic. As we helped her move to Florida, we discovered the treasure trove in her attic which she paid to move south, where it lived in our garage.

Since her current living situation feeds her three meals a day, she no longer makes popcorn very often, so doesn't need much of her Lady Finger popcorn, but WE could use the space it consumed in our garage. I noticed a local thrift store, benefitting a women’s addiction program, had a popcorn machine at its front door. So, I contacted the manager, asking if they’d like some free popcorn. I warned him: “You’d better have a hand cart or a dolly. I have a lot of it.”

Delivery day arrived and the manager met me at my car trunk. He took one look at the kernels and said, “Oh, it’s Lady Finger! The best popcorn out there!” I nearly fainted in surprise. It seems his dad owned a movie theatre back in Indiana, and his job as a kid was to pop the popcorn. His favorite was Lady Finger, when they could get it.

I say once a Hoosier always a Hoosier, and if you want popcorn advice, you know the people to ask.