Popped Culture

The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters

American Public Media

Arts, Food

4.3 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2001

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week it's the history of popcorn with Andrew Smith, author of Popped Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America. It's been around for thousands of years and it's America's favorite snack food. Andrew debunks some popcorn myths and explains why it has such staying power. His recipe for Popcorn Canapés is one of the more unusual ones we've featured here at The Splendid Table.

Jane and Michael Stern are eating with the locals at Hopkin's Boarding House in Pensacola, Florida. They'll tell us why it's one of their Top 10 Picks. Kitchen designer Deborah Krasner evaluates range hoods. It's a case of the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Barbara Flores, author of The Great Book of Pears, has a tale about how devout monks and showy aristocrats of days gone by turned the small, bitter pear into the voluptuous and luscious treat now give as holiday gifts. We think Barbara's recipe for Moraga Pear Pie is a fine way to use this succulent fruit.

Broadcast dates for this episode:

January 6, 2001

Transcript

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0:00.0	Our common nature is a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma and me, Ana Gonzalez, through this complicated country.
0:08.1	We go into caves, onto boats, and up mountain trails to meet people, hear their stories, their poetry, and of course, play some music, all to reconnect to nature and get closer to the things we're missing.
0:24.4	Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC, wherever you get podcasts.
0:30.6	It's Lynn Rosetta Casper with the Splendid Table. table.
0:48.4	Today it's the history of popcorn with Andrew Smith, author of Pop Culture, a social history of popcorn in America.
0:50.8	He takes America's favorite snack food from caveman cuisine to Orville Rettenbacher.
0:56.5	Jane and Michael Stern take us to one of their top ten restaurants in Pensacola, Florida.
1:02.3	Kitchen designer Deborah Krasner checks out range hoods, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
1:08.0	Food editor Kathy Purvis takes us to the kitchen hop.
1:11.7	And then there's pairs.
1:13.3	Forget Harry and David.
1:14.8	It was Catholic monks with too much time on their hands
1:17.6	who brought pears to glory.
1:20.0	All this and your calls coming up on the splendid table.
1:26.4	But first this.
1:34.5	Hi, it's Lynn Rosetta, Casper, with Kitchen Chronicles, where knowledge is power and
1:39.6	cooking is pleasure, a practical guide for nourishing ourselves and the people we care about.
1:46.1	Today, I want to talk about carrots. And I want to begin with a little folklore. Did you know
1:52.9	that carrots were aphrodisiacs for 17th century Italians and that people believe they
1:58.9	stimulated milk production for nursing mothers,
2:02.5	or that they were growing in Afghanistan centuries before Christ.
2:07.6	And how about Paris in the 1300s?
	...

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