How Was Popcorn Discovered?

16 August 2016, 16:41 | Updated: 16 August 2016, 17:50

Mystery Hour Question

How did the first person make popcorn? 

Tiara, Slough

Answer

**DEFINITIVE**                                                                                                                                                    

Name: Suzannah, Stoke                                                                                                                                        

Qualification: Went to Mexico                                                                                                                                   

Answer: Sweetcorn is the same thing as popcorn. It fell off the corn. They dry it out.  They were put on hot stones. They popped, released the starch and of course, are very nice to eat.

Name: James O’Brien, LBC Studio                                                                                                                    

Qualification: Host                                                                                                                                            

Answer:  They’d worked out how to make bread. So they were picking corn and wheat and grinding them up to make the flour and one day it was really, really hot and there was a little bit of something that magnified the sunlight and it was shining on a popcorn kernel and it got so hot that it just popped. Someone looked at it and thought "that looks nice, I’m going to have a little taste of that".  The first person to make popcorn did it accidentally when a kernel of corn ended up getting heated up by the sun to such a degree that it actually popped.