Popcorn was consumed in what is now Mexico even before tortillas, tamales and pozole, we tell you all about the origin of this snack
Shared from/by Mexico Desconocido
It is certain that in different parts of the world there are people who have never eaten an omelette or an exquisite pozole in their lives, moreover, surely there are those who do not even know about the existence of a country called Mexico, but that they have tried the popcorn of corn, boy have they done it.
To gloat with pleasure that popcorn, our popcorn, is in the mouths of the entire planet, it is convenient to talk about its history. To begin with, and for those who do not know, popcorn occupies seven of the 59 native corn races existing in Mexico, which in its case is identified with the scientific name of Zea mays Everta.
9000 years of popcorn
Which began to be cultivated, like so many other species, nine thousand years ago, according to archaeological references. In other words, its cultivation began with the beginning of agriculture in this part of the planet that we now call Mexico.
Even, listen to this, it is believed that popcorn was consumed by our ancestors in its popped form, long before tortillas or tamales.
The Spanish discover popcorn
Already in more recent times, during the conquest stage, the friar Bernardino de Sahagún narrated in the invaluable book, historically speaking, General History of the Things of New Spain, his amazement at seeing grains of roasted corn that opened in the fire. flower-shaped that people called momochtli.
The religious said that the women adorned their heads with this popped corn during the festivities in honor of Tezcatlipoca: “the women maidens danced, shaved and feathered with red feathers, all their arms and all their legs, and they wore compound capillejos on their heads. instead of flowers with toasted corn that they called momochtli, where each grain is a very white flower”.
Without popcorn there is no cinema
Of course, in those years, the natives never imagined that nine centuries later some Americans, during the Great Depression (1923-1933), would make the momochtli fashionable in something that would be called movie theaters, because it was cheap and helped the people will forget their sorrows by watching moving pictures and eating a cheap snack.
And since we are out there, the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mexican Gastronomy tells that in the time before the arrival of the Spaniards to these lands, the corn in question was placed on the comal so that after bursting it was smeared with maguey honey, so caramelized popcorn is not a modern invention at all.
Today’s caramelized popcorn grannies
In fact, in Chiapas, popcorn has been eaten since ancient times with piloncillo honey. A candy they call puxinú, well known in Tuxtla Gutiérrez and Chiapa de Corzo.
As a final fact is that January 19 is known as “Popcorn Day” in the United States. What the Americans fail to mention is that the momochtli with all its seven races called chapalote, palomero toluqueño, arrocillo, nal-tel, reventador and palomero de Jalisco, would not exist were it not for the fact that the ancient Mexicans domesticated them.
