Popcorn Researchers Approaching Boundaries of the Unpopped Kernel
My son and I were finishing our nightly bowl of Orville Redenbacher’s microwave popcorn.
I said something should be done to eliminate the several dozen kernels in every bag that defy popping.
Then I turned to the science page of the New York Times. There it was: “New Hope for the Unpopped: Ideas About Kernel Physics Appear to Be Flawed.”
The story told of research being done by agricultural engineers at the University of Illinois under a grant from Beatrice Hunt-Wesson Foods, which owns Orville Redenbacher popcorn.
I felt someone was calling to me. If you pop it, they will come.
I got Orville Redenbacher on the telephone. He sold the company in 1978 but still serves as its spokesman and advertising symbol.
He’s 82 and lives in a high-rise condo in Coronado. He just got back from filming “Hee-Haw” in Nashville. He loves to talk popcorn.
I told him I thought popcorn was a secret formula handed down by the ancients.
Not so, he said. Breeding and drying research is constantly under way at the 45,000-acre popcorn farm in Indiana and a test plot in Florida.
It must work. Redenbacher popcorn has twice the market share of its nearest competitor.
Still, the Unpopped Kernel (U.P.K.) has been the fly in the popcorn bowl for years. It’s a matter of moisture.
“Corn is very stubborn,” Redenbacher said. “At 14% moisture it becomes moldy. At under 12.5% it’s too brittle.”
I strayed.
How often do you eat popcorn? About five times a week. Do you dream about popcorn? Yes, all the time .
I returned to business. Do you think U.P.K. will be eradicated in my lifetime.
Reduced maybe but not eliminated. Particularly not in microwave popcorn.
Microwaves are great labor-savers but the heat just doesn’t get spread around uniformly. Specially bred large kernels have helped but there are limits, Redenbacher said.
I can live with that. I think it’s best to know these things.
Jury Gets Close Look at Evidence
Here are two more:
- The whole truth and nothing but. . . .
The turning point in Alberta Rader’s murder trial may have been when she bared her buttocks to show a bruise she said was inflicted by her husband’s foot on the night she shot him.
The prosecutor said he couldn’t detect anything. All 12 jurors and the alternate walked by for a closer look. One juror took notes.
The Vista real estate agent was acquitted on all counts.
- Rostislav Cherny, deputy foreign affairs editor for the newspaper Soviet Culture (circulation: 1 million), came to San Diego to report on the Soviet arts festival.
He was also given a diplomatic-artistic mission: Arrange for a Russian language production of the musical “Phantom of the Opera” to play Moscow.
En route to San Diego via London, Cherny met with “Phantom” composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Nothing has been set, but work is continuing on a translation.
This Home No Longer Is a House
When a retired Marine and his wife bought a modest home in the San Luis Rey section of Oceanside, it seemed ideal.
A good place to raise teen-agers. Close to the back gate of Camp Pendleton, with its base exchange and recreational facilities.
Then the couple noticed young Marines driving slowly by their home at all hours, trying to peek inside. Passing strange, the couple thought.
Then they found out the reason: Under a previous owner, the home had been placed on the list of places that are off-limits to all military personnel, on or off-duty.
Seems some ladies had been using the house as a place to sell physical pleasure on a retail basis.
The couple informed the Corps that the home was under new G-rated ownership. The recently published off-limits list carried a notation saying the home is no longer restricted.
Did that put an end to the prurient traffic? You guessed it.
More cars than ever are cruising by.
