Posted on 01/21/2012 3:44:10 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Evidence for Oldest Popcorn in South America Discovered
Remy Melina, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 20 January 2012 Time: 10:50 AM ET
They may not have had television sets, but ancient Peruvians did share one part of our movie-watching culture: popcorn. Researchers have found evidence that societies living along the coast of Peru were eating the air-filled snack about 1,000 years earlier than previously estimated — even predating the use of ceramic pottery.
Corn husks, stalks, cobs and tassels (pollen-producing flowers on corn) dating from 6,700 to 3,000 years ago were unearthed at Paredones and Huaca Prieta, two sites on Peru's northern coast, by American and Peruvian researchers. "The evidence was unearthed during the past three years," study researcher Dolores Piperno, curator of New World archaeology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and emeritus staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, told LiveScience. Map of where popcorn originated.
The characteristics of the corncobs suggest that the sites' ancient inhabitants prepared and ate corn in several ways, including making corn flour and popcorn.
The researchers also found corn microfossils containing starch grains and phytoliths, which are microscopic particles formed by plants and mainly composed of silicon dioxide. The Peruvian popcorn is the oldest macrofossil evidence for popcorn in South America. Despite the presence of these corn products, corn was still not an important part of the ancient people's diet, the researchers said.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Which brings up the philosophical question, "Which came first? The salt or the butter?"
I think the answer is obvious... the butter comes first. Otherwise the salt won't stick to the popcorn.
Now who the heck can argue with that.......Debate over before it even started....slam dunk!
That’s pretty impressive, actually, because it means they must have invented the microwave oven, too.
:’) We’ve had a lot of need for it these past two days. :’)
I was just trying to contrast the nonintuitive steps to bread that had to be discovered somehow.
Popcorn would be easy to discover — a crappy ear of corn gets tossed in the fire, or some underdisciplined kids are throwing ears at each other, or (and I love this one), the roasting of other varieties of corn had been around a while before that, and the first to try roasting an ear of popcorn suspected nothing until...
:’)
Oh yeah. I jumped into one the other day. It is simply amazing how many people were so kind to remind me how narrow-minded and inconsequential I am.
That sounds plausible. Popcorn (Zea mays praecox, a type of flint corn) will pop, even when still attached to the cob.
:’) Consequential has more to do with how many people think the same way.
Alas, the trolls, they are not thinkers.
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