Today’s newspaper has a cover story in the Life section about popcorn balls, tying it to Halloween and fall. One of my favorite memories is making popcorn balls with my granddad.
My mom’s parents lived in South Dakota in an old house that I suspect was built about 1880. The kitchen had a sloping floor because it had been built with a cistern underneath–the cistern was no longer used but the floor still sloped. My grandmother said she saw a fireball roll across the kitchen floor one evening during a lightening storm, and my dad said the second year of my brother’s life he (dad) was always soaked in milk because he sat “downhill” from him at mealtimes. That kitchen also had at least 2 and sometimes 3 pantries–depending on which state of re-modeling the kitchen was in–they stored such disparate things as the shotguns and rifles we used for hunting, the ironing board, and every check-stub my granddad ever wrote.
The evenings were long in South Dakota–I was usually either re-reading the Zane Grey series of westerns my grandmother had bought on subscription for my aunt, or I was trying to watch the snowy television that got one channel.
Sometimes Granddad decided we needed a treat–he had a real sweet tooth, which, of course, was just fine with us grandkids. He believed in lots of ice cream to “cool your belly.” That was no mean fete when the ranch was 17 miles from town–we usually had a small cone from the dairy stand next door to the grocery store, and then we wrapped the frozen 1/2 gallons of ice cream from the store in triple layers of newspaper tied with string to transport them home. But sometimes the treat of choice was popcorn balls.
Making popcorn balls with Granddad (as was anything when Granddad was involved) was a real procedure. First we had to fire up the old O’Keefe and Merritt range that ran on propane. We had to find just the right pan to pop the corn in, adjust for the precise ratio of corn and oil, and then we had to find the exact balance between shaking the pan and letting it sit so the maximum number of kernels would pop.
Even after this careful attention, some unpopped kernels made it through, so we had to sort those out. We usually made 3 or 4 batches of popcorn, and we put them in the big enamel dishpan on the table that sat in the middle of the kitchen. Us kids were usually tasked with sorting while Granddad got the syrup started.
The recipe must have been in his head because I never saw a piece of paper. He watched it carefully, adjusting the gas flame and analyzing the boil and then dropping a sample into a cup of cold water. He’d stick his finger into the water and roll the sample around–if it formed a ball then it was ready–he seemed to be able to look at the bubbles in the pan, though, and know. I doubt he ever saw a candy thermometer. All this time, he’s narrating what he’s doing and telling us what he’s looking for. I listened, but my own popcorn balls still require a recipe. And a thermometer.
If we were lucky, we could rustle up some nuts to put into the mix–sometimes Granny had some pecans or peanuts squirreled away and those went into the dishpan mix as well. He gave it a final stir to be sure we’d gotten all the “old maids” out–see below for my theory on why he called them that. Maybe he added a shake or two of salt. Then, while telling us how important it was to pour the hot syrup carefully so we didn’t get burned but also so it coated all the popped corn, Granddad began pouring in the boiling clear sweet syrup. He’d turn the dishpan with one hand and pour the syrup in a very thin stream with the other. Sometimes he’d tell us to go ahead and start stirring–how we avoided getting burned I’ll never know, but I don’t remember any serious accidents.
Then it was time to eat. Most of the popcorn never made it into a ball–we just ate it “loose.” It was delicious everytime. We’d eat our fill and then peel the stray bits of syrup off the sides of the dishpan. I remember later after he and Granny had moved from South Dakota down to stay with my aunt in Oklahoma where I was going to college, a college friend and I persuaded Grandad to help us make some popcorn at my aunt’s. Grandad couldn’t hear very well as he aged, but when my friend asked me why he called the unpopped kernals “old maids,” and in a hushed tone, I ventured a guess, we were met with a “Now, girls…” from Granddad. I reminded him that he didn’t hear so well and he reminded me to be nice. My friend and I still have a laugh over that one.
Recently I met a woman who told me that one of her favorite childhood memories was going to my great-aunt’s house at Halloween because my Aunt Edna always had delicious popcorn balls. This was out in the Oklahoma panhandle, where the trick-or-treating took some chauffeuring as the farm houses weren’t all that close together. Aunt Edna was my granddad’s sister–must have been one of their family traditions.
