Popcorn, I have great memories of it and now can enjoy it again with my little girls.

My childhood in ways was a never ending battle for food in many ways.  It was hard to feed 8 kids and 2 adults, even with my dad making good wages at his many jobs. We never went to a food bank or had food stamps, it is just something we didn't or wouldn't have done.  We ate a lot of spaghetti and beans, though not once did we ever eat butter noodles or beans and rice, I don't actually know why, either my mom didn't think about them or had never heard of them.  We ate alot of macaroni and tomatoes.  I have never once purchased a package of macaroni in my adult life, I just can't stomach the thought of one more dinner of tomatoes and macaroni.  We grew the tomatoes in our gardens, we always had a garden when ever the house we lived in allowed us to.  My dad can grow a wonderful garden and still does. My dad was also a great hunter and kept us in wild meat. My mom canned anything she could get, peaches, cherries, pickles, sauer kraut, veggies or all kinds, meat anything really she could get.  She supplemented our diets with lots of spudnuts and Cinnamon rolls.  We had cornmeal, oatmeal or pancakes most mornings for breakfast. I can't ever remember having cold cereal.  Excess pancakes were saved and we had pancakes as a snack in the afternoon.  I don't recall ever really having candy like children do now, we had butter and sugar on pancakes.  Sometime we would have popcorn.  Mom would get out her pressure cooker pan, put a pat of butter or margarine in the bottom and a measure of popcorn close the lid and we would listen.  We all sat around the stove listening in anticipation for the first pop to come form the pan.  We laughed to here the jumble of popping the soon would come and then slowly, a pop here and a pop there and then silence.  It was done, yay.  She would put melted butter and salt on the popcorn after she dumbed it into the big bowl.  We all sat on the floor and ate popcorn as we watched little house on the prairie or the Walton's.  The wind wouldn't howl out side or the snow would come down but we were happy eating our popcorn and sharing our lives.

I really didn't make much popcorn for years as an adult.  Mom had advanced to a air popcorn machine but somehow we didn't really make it when our older kids were little. I sort of thought of buying the microwave popcorn when it came out but it never really caught one here; in hindsight I am glad we didn't as it has diacetyl in it, and yes they will soon take it out but for now you are on your own.  It scares me that it could have been something I gave my kids regularly.  Belle gave me several bags of popcorn in a box of food she gave me a few months ago.  I didn't really know how to react to the popcorn.  I hadn't had a bag of it in my house in literally decades.  I decided to look up a homemade recipe to cook it maybe in the microwave or I could get our my lidded pot.  I came across a recipe on the net.  It seemed very easy.  I got the girls together that night.  We got out 3 bags, little lunch bags, we took 1 table spoon of butter, 1/3 cup of corn kernels, we fold the little bag over twice.  We, each in turn, put our bag in the microwave, put the timer on 3 minutes, then we quietly listened.  We heard the first explosive pop, and it made us smile, we listened as it was a jumble of pop exploding here and there, then slowly one pop, another and then the silence.  We opened up the microwave and there was the bag with the smell of my childhood memories.  Joyfully we opened the bag and it was full of the white puffs, we each took our bag. ( No, I did not put butter on them, I am trying to stop the generational obesity in my family.  I may not necessarily look like it but we eat a diet that doesn't include, pop, lots of candies, chips or bad things for us.  I love my girls and they have a good diet that will last them a life time. ) We did however make a memory of the treat of popcorn that will sustain them for a life time. I hope you have popcorn in you life..... tomorrow.