I have always loved it. When I was little my mom made the most incredible popcorn balls. I remember they were wrapped in colored cellophane and hung on our Christmas tree... caramel-ee and sticky...
In high school I worked at a movie theater that showed indie films... I think "The Gods must be Crazy" played for over a year in one of the auditoriums... they had amazing popcorn with Vermont Cabot butter... I made popcorn every night and melted pound after pound of real butter. I would always get a small cup of buttered popcorn and stand at the back theater watching movies like "Stop Making Sense", "La Chevre", and "Repo Man"... it was and remained for some time the best popcorn I ever had...
I remember the novelty of Jiffy Pop was always fun to bring camping... and we have had several air poppers over the years... which seem to spit out more kernels unpopped than popped... I plodded along with another air popper... the kind that launched a scalding kernel into the corner of my eye (I have the scar still)...
Microwave popcorn was (and is) too salty...
I saw a microwave popcorn bowl somewhere (Amazon I think) and thought "that's neat, but I bet it does not work well"...
A few months ago my old air popper gasped it's last breath...
I was walking through Target and saw a simple melamine (I think) type bowl and plastic lid with vents... calling itself a microwave popcorn bowl... $.6.99... couldn't hurt to try it...
The instructions were lacking at best... "Pop corn with or without oil"... that was it... I was excited to try it out... and put 1/2 cup of popcorn in the bowl with NO oil for the same 4 minutes I put microwave bags in for...
I stood and watched and listened... and within 30-45 seconds it was popping away... I realized there was a 1-2 second gap a few seconds too late the first time I used the bowl... the lid was pushing off and a few of the kernels were burnt... conversely... the popped corn was fluffy and tender... and there were only 20 or so kernels unpopped.
The next time I used 1/3 of a cup and put it in for 3:15 minutes... I still ended up stopping it earlier... but this time none of the kernels were scorched and there were maybe a total of 15 unpopped kernels....
I am a convert! I have figured out MY microwave timing and a third of a cup is perfect. I never use oil and transfer the popped corn into a new bowl as soon as I take it out of the microwave.... there a single tablespoon of butter is enough to flavor the whole bowl...
There is another bowl I saw on Amazon that uses a heating element pad... that eventually wears out... and needs to be replaced. The Nordic Ware is the one I got... and I will never use anything else...
A couple things to note... the bottom of the bowl gets REALLY hot... so set it on a cutting board or plate rather than something that could be affected by the heat... and you want to get the lid off quickly once you get it out of the microwave so that the condensation does not dampen the crisp corn...
1 tbs of melted butter is perfect for the 12 cups of popped corn and just enough so the salt sticks.
My preference is no oil and to not use the bowl for serving... it wipes out cleanly once cool and nothing more need be done to the bowl...
If you like popcorn and want a chemical laden free snack that is both extremely cost effective and easy to make and clean up after... this is the bowl I would go with...
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