If you’re like me, you enjoy a snack of popped corn while watching a movie. And if you’re also like me, you like experimenting at home with flavors. Popcorn toppers, real butter, ghee, heck I know some hippies out there love nutritional yeast. But if you want to recreate the genuine “movie theater” popcorn, do what the pros do: spend 10 bucks and get yourself some Flavacol.
Flavacol comes in a big 32 ounce milk carton that looks like it has not changed since Eisenhower was in office. Gold Medal, the company that makes it, has been making carnival-adjacent snack supplies since 1931. It’s made in Cincinnati, which is exactly where I want my artificial popcorn flavoring to be made. The side of the carton implores the reader “FOR additional PROFITS TRY THESE GOLD MEDAL PROFIT-MAKERS: Sno-Kones®, COTTON CANDY, NACHOS, HOT DOGS & MORE!.” This is the industrial stuff they use in theaters, it’s a radioactive orange powder that is roughly the same hue as the cheese that comes with Kraft.
The ingredients in Flavacol are essentially salt, flavors and coloring. It costs less than 10 dollars for about 32 ounces or 827 servings, and unless you are running a theater you will not run out of it for several years. Part of what makes Flavacol work is that popcorn salt is very finely ground, so unlike table salt it permeates every single nook and cranny of the kernel. It gives the popcorn a light orange hue and that “movie” taste that we all know and love. They sell several varieties of Flavacol including a “Better Butter” variant, “Premier” variant without yellow #5, and a Color Free version that comes in a 4 pound bucket. I just stick to the normal stuff because I bought it once and have no reason to get anything else until retirement.
There are many ways to prepare popcorn, but I prefer a Whirley Pop over an air popper. It’s a big aluminum kettle you put on your stove. It has a crank that you can use to constantly agitate the kernels while also mixing in whatever oil and additives you want. The Whirley Pop is cheap, and simple and unless you need an induction-compatible model or are afraid of aluminum it’s your best bet for the money. ew
People are very particular about their popcorn workflow, so feel free to experiment with your preferred oil and salt ratio, as well as the order of operation for when to add your Flavacol. Some people prefer to use special butter flavored popcorn oil. Those people are valid, but for my money you can’t go wrong with Flavacol and coconut oil, the preferred combo of many popcorn enthusiasts. Ghee is nice to experiment with as well, and it’s shelf stable so easy to keep around. I have heard from fellow “corn heads” that a stainless steel dredge is also nice to have, since it’s cheap and easy to get at a restaurant supply store, but you can do without it. You can also get a big reusable tub so you can pretend your living room is the weird independent multiplex near your house that’s slightly cheaper for some reason.
Popcorn itself is a surprisingly deep rabbit hole, too deep to discuss here, but if you have an opportunity, at the very least experiment with different popcorn varieties. Amish Country is a good supplier and they sell big sampler boxes of all their different varieties, but you should at least give Mushroom a shot – it’s the big puff ball one that you usually see in kettle and caramel corn. Some people love it, some hate it, and I personally go back and forth between that and the standard butterfly depending on my mood and toppings.
Happy cornin’.
