Popcorn in Farmstead World — crop in the game, and what it is on a real farm.
Popcorn is a flint corn with a hard, glassy hull, and its moisture content is what matters: the kernel needs water inside it to build steam as it heats.
At about 135 psi the hull finally gives way, and the starch inside turns itself out and puffs to twenty to fifty times its original size.
It is grown as its own food-grade crop, kept apart from dent corn and from sweet corn, because kernels that cross with other types pop poorly.
Farm facts about popcorn
Corn was domesticated by Indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from a wild grass called teosinte. (en.wikipedia.org)
Wild teosinte 'ears' hold just 5 to 10 seeds in stone-hard cases - nothing like a modern corncob. (en.wikipedia.org)
Teosinte seeds are armored so hard they can survive a trip through a grazing animal's gut - which helps the wild plant spread. (en.wikipedia.org)
Some corn varieties carry up to 20% of their DNA from a second teosinte species, picked up through natural cross-breeding over thousands of years. (en.wikipedia.org)
Teosinte weeds in Mexican corn fields evolved to mimic corn plants so farmers wouldn't pull them - a phenomenon called Vavilovian mimicry. (en.wikipedia.org)
The genus name Zea comes from a Greek word for a completely different grain - possibly spelt. (en.wikipedia.org)