Popcorn at the Campsite

Just as eating at home or our vacation home, the vast majority of meals at the campsite were homemade from scratch, much the same as they were when we were camping with our kids so many years ago.  Even the majority of snacks our kids enjoyed while camping were homemade or simply fruit.  Homemade trail mix was one of their favourites as was popcorn.  The year we camped in tents, I bought Jiffy-pop for one of the kids' snacks.  They loved popcorn, a regular snack at home, usually made in an air popper.  With no hydro, I reasoned that Jiffy-pop would be a good substitute.  It was and the kids loved watching the foil lid puff up!  The following year we bought a tent trailer so popcorn was made in the trailer or in a popcorn popper over the fire.  I never did go back to buying Jiffy-pop but the kids still remember that little bit of magic.

The kids have a Coleman stove that uses naptha (white gas) fuel under pressure.  The fuel is poured into the red canister.  Once the cap (towards top of canister) is tightened, the canister is pressurized by pumping the pressurizer (near bottom of canister).  The burner is turned on then gas lit with a match.  The burner burns with a high orange flame that gradually lowers, tightening towards the centre turning a hot blue flame for cooking.

The kids fired up the Coleman and while a pot of coffee was brewing for the adults, the Jiffy-pop cooked on the other burner.  The grandkids waited patiently in anticipation.  True to form, within minutes the magical puffed up lid appeared giving the sign the popcorn was almost ready to serve.  

The is a lot of steam under the foil once the popcorn is popped so the kids carefully opened it, revealing the hot, tender popcorn ready to be enjoyed.   The grandkids climbed up on their camp chairs, happily munching on popcorn while chatting about that day's adventurers.  As the day drew to a close, sitting around a roaring fire was a pleasant ending. 

These days, I make popcorn at home using an electric Whirly popcorn popper.  The grandkids love watching the popcorn pop large, tender morsels that aren't tough or dried out as air poppers can cause.  We are planning on getting back into camping so popcorn will be a staple snack when camping.  I'll go back to using a popcorn popper over the campfire when camping.  Still this brought back pleasant memories of our very first camping trips!