Kids love spicy popcorn with nopales cactus, fruit, or fresh herbs

Most kids love popcorn. Make it at home without adding butter, oils, or salt.  Instead add spices. Popcorn is Native American in origin. According to the History of Popcorn site, the oldest popcorn known to date was carbon-dated to be more than 5,600 years old and found in what's called the  “Bat Cave” in west central New Mexico.

The popcorn ears ranged from 1/2 inch to 2 inches long. According to the History of Popcorn site, archaeologists deduce that popcorn was first made by throwing corn kernels on sizzling hot stones tended over a campfire, or onto heated sand, causing the kernels to pop. It was not eaten as a snack food.

Instead, corn was sifted and then pounded into a fine, powdery meal and mixed with water. This same cooking technique was used by the early Colonists, who mixed ground popcorn with milk and ate it for breakfast as a kind of cereal. Popcorn served with a warm beverage doesn't need to be drenched in liquid fat to be moist. You could serve popcorn with fruit such as mangos or plaintains...or with herbs such as dill or chopped parsley.

The prehistoric popcorn was discovered in the  Bat Cave back in 1948 by anthropologist Herbert Dick and botanist Earle Smith. Archaeologists also found popcorn dated from the fourth century C.E. in a Zapotec funeral urn in Mexico., according to the History of Popcorn site. The urn depicts a maize god with symbols representing primitive popcorn in his headdress.

You can even replicate ancient, prehistoric corn poppers if you want to. Actually, popcorn originally was thrown into a fire, probably to be roasted to be made chewable because the dry popcorn would break some people's teeth. But instead of roasting like fresh corn kernals, the dried, hard corn kernals popped from the heat. Ancient popcorn poppers found by anthropologists and archaeologists looked like shallow vessels with a hole on the top and a single handle.

These tops of corn poppers have been found on the northern coast of Peru and date back to about 300 C.E. Peruvian Indians called the popcorn pisancalla. A 1,000 year old popped kernel of popcorn was found in a dry cave inhabited by predecessors of the Pueblo Indian in southwest Utah. Native Americans flavored popcorn with herbs and spices.

So you can picture corn popping from North America to Central America and all the way down South America, much in the same way, by heating dried kernels of corn. How about popping some corn in a pan or pot with a tablespoon full of coconut oil and serving the warm popcorn with some of these Native American and/or Mexican recipes.

The actual recipe for classic Mexican white rice with sweet plaintains is at the Chef Rick Bayless Frontera recipes website. What's the best popcorn to serve for National Popcorn Month this October? Serve another Native American specialty: chili popcorn made in a modern way. See the recipe is at the site, Chili Popcorn Recipe - Allrecipes.com. After all, making popcorn. Sprinkle over the popcorn chili powder, and cayenne pepper for starters as spices go. Then you can add the paprika, grated cheese, and garlic powder.

As for serving this Native American as well as Latin American dish with a side of nopales, you can buy nopales in most local Mexican-style food markets. See, Nopalitos at MexGrocer. Nopales refers to sliced prickly pear cactus shoots, tender cactus. You boil in water the nopales (prickly pear cactus shoots diced) with some diced yellow onion. Drain, and eat like a side vegetable.

As you cook the fresh nopales, there is a thickening or jelling of the water that looks like what happens when you boil okra in water. So cook the nopales until tender, drain the liquid, and serve with grated cheese and spices as a side dish.

• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 1/2 quarts popped popcorn
• Refrigerated butter-flavored spray*

Many people don't like to use processed, canned spray-type oils with their popcorn. So instead of a buttery spray, you might simply pop your corn, using 1/2 cup of fresh, dried, unpopped corn to one tablespoon of either sesame, coconut, or rice bran oil. Or use grape seed oil. You're going to be using only one tablespoon of oil to a half cup of corn to pop your popcorn in a skillet or other large cooking utensil. Heat the dried corn with the oil until all the corn has popped.

Do not microwave popcorn because it's not healthy to microwave grains till they pop due to the toxic emissions from microwaved popcorn. See my other Examine.com article, "What Sacramento shoppers need to know about adulterated foods."

When the corn is popped you mix all the spices and cheese together with the popcorn in a large bag or container and shake everything together until the popcorn is covered with the grated Parmesan cheese and all the spices such as chili, cayenne pepper, and if you like, a teaspoon of curry powder.

The online recipe for chili popcorn does not suggest adding curry powder. That's mentioned here only if you enjoy the taste of curry combined with the taste of chili. So add the spices you like to mix and match international flavors.

If you want to add South Asian spices to popcorn, go ahead. And if you want to mix Mexican spices such as chili powder and cayenne pepper with garlic as well, then you have international popcorn with a spicy flavor.

The idea is to pop your corn first and then shake the popcorn in a big bag with the spices. It's optional to add salt if you like salty rather than spicy popcorn. You can substitute onion and garlic powder, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and curry or chili powder for salt. Or add your favorite herbs such as oregano and thyme. Basically, you're shaking the warm popcorn in a bag along with the spices and any grated cheese you want to include.

Popcorn is a simple snack synonymous with watching movies and fun nostalgia. In Sacramento, you could listen to the Sacramento Moms Like Me web site for many different ideas of what to do when you can celebrate a national day almost every day of the year. So you might snack with Mexican-style pocorn. What makes it Mexican-style? It's the chili on the popcorn.

Chili Popcorn with nopales cactus

Try chili popcorn with nopales. For an international treat, combine chili with curry powder as well as cayenne pepper. Now you have foods that combine Native American, Central American, Mexican and even curried South Asian popcorn merging as you make fresh-popped at home in your skillet. Want more international popcorn recipes for National Popcorn Month?

Popcorn is not only a strictly new-world food or snack. Corn has been imported all around the world these days. Also there's a Greek-style popcorn recipe at the CD Kitchen website.

And if you like Italian popcorn, there's a recipe at: Rachel Ray's website where you're invited by the Food Network to see that recipe at the website, Zippy Italian Popcorn Recipe: Rachael Ray: Food Network. Also for more popcorn recipes for National Popcorn Day, see: Italian Popcorn Recipe - Allrecipes.com.

People in the USA eat about 16 billion quarts of popcorn each year. That's about 54 quarts per person. Popcorn is said to have been created in India and China more than 5,000 years ago, as a game where kernels were popped over sizzling hearths.

The game consisted of trying to catch the kernels in mid-air. But only in the 1980s did popcorn become available in stores prepared for modern microwave ovens.

What makes a quality popcorn? It's how much moisture is in its kernel. Food scientists sometimes even measure the expansion ratio of the kernel using math formulas. Chefs look at food processing procedures.

Popcorn industry researchers study storage and handling at home as well as in transit and in the plant. It goes back to the genes in the corn kernel and whether the corn kernel is or is not genetically modified by scientists in the seed form or whether the corn is organic or full of pesticides while growing on the farm. So it's all a history of how our food is produced before it reaches your home.

The idea is how to prepare popcorn using healthier substitutions for the toppings and fixings. Want more dessert-style popcorn? Try this recipe for caramel popcorn, home-made at: Saida Online. It's a Lebanese-style popcorn site. Or try nut butter popcorn. Why Lebanese-Mexican mixed popcorn? Well, look how many Lebanese-Mexican actresses are famous in the USA, such as Selma Hayek.

Or pour melted caramel over your popcorn. Instead of the usual poporn recipes for various nut butter popcorn recipes calling for familiar or traditional ingredients such as: 1 cup light corn syrup, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup peanut butter, and 2 quarts popped popcorn, how about substituting healthier ingredients your body really needs, such as almond or cashew butter instead of peanut butter full of a lot of Omega 6 fatty acids?

Try some nuts that contain more of a balance of omega 3, 6, and 9 in various proportions...such as the almond or cashew butter. Or mix pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, almond butter, and cashew butter in some amounts together in a blender or food processor and use in place of commercial peanut butter.

Instead use almond or cashew nut butter. Or use sesame tahini in small amounts to roll into the popcorn and then roll in black sesame seeds or chia seeds. And instead of the cup of sugar and cup of corn syrup, just leave out the sweet stuff from the popcorn. Keep the corn and nuts, and ditch the sugar and corn syrup. Don't use peanuts. Use a handful of walnuts or some almonds and walnuts mixed with sunflower seeds and sesame seeds or some pumpkin seeds.

In stead of sugar or syrup, substitute a healthier alternative such as pureed banana for the usual recipes you find online that call for sugar/corn syrup mixture to pour over popcorn. If you don't want to puree a banana on your popcorn, use dried fruit such as pitted dates, figs, nectarines, raisins, currants, apricots, or any dried fruit you like instead of sugar or corn syrup over popcorn.

Remember to brush your teeth after eating caramel or nut-butter and dried fruit puree popcorn. How about making National Popcorn Day an afternoon to enjoy a healthier popcorn snack? Here's a recipe for curried chili popcorn, with a South Asian flavor, an Eastern Mediterrean Feta cheese, as well as Mexican spices.

Curried Popcorn with Feta Cheese and Chili Powder

Now you're combining food choices from Latin America with South Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean

Serves/Makes 6

Overnight soak in a covered jar in your refrigerator, 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil with sliced black pitted olives, 1/4 teaspoon of garlic (powder or minced chopped garlic), 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric, 1/4 teaspoon of curry powder, pinch of black pepper. Optional: salt to taste, if desired.

Ingredients:
1 cup unpopped popcorn.

1/2 cup shredded Greek feta cheese.

1/2 cup shredded Greek kasseri cheese.

1 tablespoon oregano.

1 level teaspoon of chili powder.

1 tablespoon basil.

1/2 cup extra virgin cold-pressed olive oil or sesame seed oil flavored with garlic, curry powder, black pepper, turmeric, and  1/2 cup of pitted olives, sliced in half.

Directions: