60 free Popcorn trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Popcorn is the rare snack with a genuinely deep back story. Kernels were being popped in Peru nearly 7,000 years ago, a Chicago candy-store owner invented the steam-powered popper in 1885, movie theaters once banned it, and the whole microwave-popcorn industry traces back to an engineer who noticed a candy bar melting in his pocket next to a radar set. This quiz packs 54 popcorn facts and trivia questions into one place: the physics of the pop (moisture, pressure, temperature), the difference between butterfly and mushroom flakes, why unpopped kernels are called old maids, the stories behind Cracker Jack, Jiffy Pop, kettle corn and Orville Redenbacher, the six Midwestern towns that all call themselves the Popcorn Capital of the World, and the odd corners like popcorn ceilings and popcorn lung. Difficulty runs from easy warm-ups to a few only a food historian would know. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia, the US Census Bureau or the Popcorn Board, and the sentence that proves it is quoted under each question.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the scientific name of the corn variety that pops?
Zea mays everta
The other names belong to dent corn, sweet corn and flour corn; popcorn is technically a special kind of flint corn.
Q 02Popcorn is one of how many major types of corn?
Six
Dent corn is what fills American silos; sweet corn is what you eat off the cob.
Q 03What moisture level, by weight, makes kernels expand the most?
About 14 to 15 percent
Freshly harvested corn is too wet and pops chewy; over-dried kernels simply refuse to burst.
Q 04Roughly what internal pressure does a kernel reach just before its hull ruptures?
135 psi
That is more than four times the pressure in a car tire, all held by a shell a fraction of a millimeter thick.
Q 05At roughly what temperature does a kernel pop?
356°F (180°C)
Cretors' original butter-and-lard mix was chosen because it could handle the higher oil temperatures needed to get there without smoking.
Q 06By what factor does a kernel expand when it pops?
20 to 50
The starch inside literally turns itself inside out as the steam flashes off, then sets into the familiar white foam.
Q 07The oldest evidence of popped corn, dated to about 4,700 BCE, was found in which country?
Peru
The cobs came from the Paredones and Huaca Prieta sites on the northern coast.
Q 08In which US state is the 'Bat Cave' where 1948 excavations found ears of popcorn dated to about 3600 BCE?
New Mexico
The rock shelters in Catron County held some of the oldest corn ever found north of Mexico.
Q 09Who invented the first steam-powered popcorn machine in Chicago in 1885?
Charles Cretors
His company still builds theater poppers today, more than 135 years later.
Q 10What kind of business did Cretors run before he built his popcorn machine?
A candy store
He had built steam machines for roasting peanuts and simply pointed the technology at corn.
Q 11At which event did Cretors introduce his popcorn machine to the public in 1893?
The Columbian Exposition in Chicago
The same fair gave the world the Ferris wheel and the first caramel corn.
Q 12How did street vendors pop corn before steam machines existed?
Holding a wire basket over an open flame
The result was smoky, unevenly popped and easily burned, which is why an oil-and-steam machine caught on so fast.
Q 13Cretors' machine popped corn in a mixture of salt, lard and what?
Clarified butter
Q 21What new technology of the 1940s caused popcorn consumption to fall?
Television
The Popcorn Institute responded by promoting popcorn as a snack to eat at home in front of the set.
Q 22In which year was the Orville Redenbacher's brand launched?
1970
Redenbacher was already in his sixties, and had spent decades breeding hybrids before an ad agency put his name and face on the jar.
Q 23Orville Redenbacher earned his degree in agronomy from which university?
Purdue
He was born in Brazil, Indiana, and stayed loyal to the state, which is why Valparaiso holds a popcorn festival in his honor.
The one-third butter, two-thirds lard blend could take 450°F without much smoke.
Q 14Under what name did Louis Rueckheim sell a tweaked version of his brother's 1893 caramel corn from 1896?
Cracker Jack
The name supposedly came from a taster exclaiming 'That's a crackerjack!', slang for something excellent.
Q 15In which year did prizes start appearing in every box of the Rueckheims' caramel corn?
1912
Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo joined the box around 1916 and were trademarked in 1919.
Q 16Which company has owned the Rueckheim brothers' caramel-corn brand since 1997?
Frito-Lay
The PepsiCo subsidiary replaced the paper prizes with QR codes in 2016, to loud complaints.
Q 17During the Great Depression, roughly how much did a bag of popcorn cost?
5 to 10 cents
The cheap treat kept many struggling farmers afloat, including a family named Redenbacher.
Q 18During World War II, sugar rationing cut candy production. What happened to American popcorn consumption?
It roughly tripled
With sweets scarce, salted popcorn became the default snack of the home front.
Q 19Why did many early movie-theater owners dislike popcorn?
They thought it distracted from the films
Vendors sold it on the sidewalk outside instead, until theaters realized how much money they were missing.
Q 20Theater owner Glen Dickinson Sr. put popcorn machines in his lobbies in 1938, then bought what?
Farms that grew the corn
Popcorn was making him more money than the tickets, so he took over the supply chain.
Q 24Before an ad agency renamed it, what did Redenbacher and partner Charles Bowman call their prized hybrid?
RedBow
The agency told them nobody would remember RedBow, but that Orville's own odd name was unforgettable.
Q 25To which company did Redenbacher and Bowman sell their popcorn business in 1976?
Hunt-Wesson
Redenbacher stayed on as spokesman in his horn-rimmed glasses and bow tie until his death in 1995.
Q 26How did Orville Redenbacher die in 1995?
He had a heart attack and drowned in his hot tub
He was 88 and living in Coronado, California; a bronze statue of him sits on a bench in Valparaiso, Indiana.
Q 27Which company received the first patent for a microwave popcorn bag, in 1981?
General Mills
The key was a susceptor, a metallized film that concentrates heat on the oil and flavor coating.
Q 28What is the metallized film in a microwave popcorn bag that concentrates heat called?
A susceptor
Without it the oil slick at the bottom would never get hot enough before the bag itself scorched.
Q 29Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer discovered microwave cooking when what melted in his pocket?
A candy bar
He then aimed the magnetron at popcorn kernels, which became the world's first microwaved popcorn; an egg tested next exploded in a colleague's face.
Q 30What was the first food Percy Spencer deliberately cooked with microwaves?
Popcorn
Raytheon filed its patent for a microwave cooking oven on October 8, 1945.