Popcorn (popping maize)
Palomitas de maíz (maíz reventón)
- Date
- c. 4700 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Paredones and Huaca Prieta, Chicama Valley, La Libertad, Peru
- Credited to
- Preceramic farmers of the northern Andean coast
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Maize cobs and kernels with heat-altered starch from Peruvian preceramic sites indicate that popping maize was already being toasted some 6700 years ago. The hard-hulled kernel bursts on heating and became both a snack and an offering.
The Peruvian remains (starch and cob study at Paredones and Huaca Prieta, 2012) suggest popping-type maize but do not by themselves prove it was popped. Other popcorn-type cobs from Bat Cave (New Mexico) date to around 3600 BC, and the Peruvian ones would be older.
What it led to
- maize as a portable and ritual food in the Andes and Mesoamerica
- selection of hard-hulled maize races
- worldwide popularity as a cinema snack from the 20th century