Popcorn Trivia
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100 free Popcorn trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 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 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the scientific name of the corn variety that pops?
Zea mays everta
Popcorn is Zea mays everta, technically a type of flint corn; the other names belong to dent corn (indentata), sweet corn (saccharata) and flour corn (amylacea).
Q 02Popcorn is one of how many major types of corn?
Six
Six major types are recognised: dent, flint, flour, sweet, pod and popcorn. Dent corn 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
About 14 to 15 percent moisture by weight gives the best expansion; freshly harvested corn is too wet and pops chewy, while over-dried kernels simply refuse to burst.
Q 04Roughly what internal pressure does a kernel reach just before its hull ruptures?
135 psi
The hull holds steam to about 135 psi before it ruptures, more than quadruple the pressure in a car tire, all behind a shell a fraction of a millimeter thick.
Q 05At roughly what temperature does a kernel pop?
356°F (180°C)
A kernel pops at about 356°F (180°C), when the water inside has flashed to high-pressure steam that bursts the hull and puffs the starch.
Q 06By what factor does a kernel expand when it pops?
20 to 50
A kernel expands 20 to 50 times its original volume; the starch turns 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 of Peru, where corn was popped and ground some 6,700 years ago.
Q 08In which US state is the 'Bat Cave' where 1948 excavations found ears of popcorn dated to about 3600 BCE?
New Mexico
Bat Cave lies in Catron County, New Mexico; its rock shelters held some of the oldest corn ever found north of Mexico.
Q 09Which grandson of Orville Redenbacher appeared beside him in the brand's commercials?
Gary Redenbacher
Gary Redenbacher, Orville's grandson, shared the screen with him in the brand's commercials from the 1980s.
Q 10What kind of business did Cretors run before he built his popcorn machine?
A candy store
A candy store in Decatur was Cretors' business before he moved to Chicago; 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
Cretors showed his machine at The Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, the same fair that gave the world the Ferris wheel.
Q 12How did street vendors pop corn before steam machines existed?
Holding a wire basket over an open flame
Holding a wire basket over an open flame was the old street method; 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?
Q 21What new technology of the 1940s caused popcorn consumption to fall?
Television
Television kept people home and out of cinemas in the late 1940s and early 1950s; 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
The brand launched in 1970, when Redenbacher was already in his sixties; he 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
Redenbacher earned his agronomy degree at Purdue, in his native state, and the town of Valparaiso there holds a popcorn festival in his honor.
Clarified butter
Clarified butter made up one-third of Cretors' popping mix, with two-thirds lard and salt, a blend that 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
Cracker Jack got its name in 1896, supposedly when a taster exclaimed 'That's a crackerjack!', slang for something excellent; the name was trademarked that year.
Q 15In which year did prizes start appearing in every box of the Rueckheims' caramel corn?
1912
Prizes went into every box starting in 1912; Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo joined the packaging around 1916 and were trademarked in 1919.
Q 16Which company bought the Rueckheim brothers' caramel-corn brand from Borden in 1997?
Frito-Lay
Frito-Lay, a PepsiCo subsidiary, bought the brand from Borden in 1997 and 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
At 5 to 10 cents a bag, popcorn was one of the few treats families could afford, and the popcorn trade thrived while other farm businesses failed.
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
They thought it distracted from the films and dirtied their carpets; vendors sold it on the sidewalk outside until theaters realised 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
Farms that grew the corn were Dickinson's next purchase; popcorn was making more money than the tickets, so he took over his own 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
They sold to Hunt-Wesson in 1976; 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 had a heart attack and drowned in his hot tub at his Coronado, California condominium, aged 88; a bronze statue of him sits on a bench in Valparaiso.
Q 27Which company received the first patent for a microwave popcorn bag, in 1981?
General Mills
General Mills received the first microwave popcorn bag patent in 1981; the bag's heat-concentrating film lets the oil and flavor coating get hot fast.
Q 28What is the metallized film in a microwave popcorn bag that concentrates heat called?
A susceptor
A susceptor, typically a thin layer of metallized film, absorbs microwaves and heats the oil slick at the bottom before the bag itself scorches.
Q 29Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer discovered microwave cooking when what melted in his pocket?
A candy bar
A candy bar melting in his pocket while he stood near an active magnetron in 1945 tipped Spencer off, and he started experimenting with food.
Q 30Which food did Percy Spencer test with microwaves right after popcorn?
A raw egg
A raw egg was next: it exploded in a colleague's face, and Raytheon filed its oven patent on October 8, 1945.