The Popcorn Edition

Snacking Your Way to Discovery

America’s 20th-century snack-food king Orville Redenbacher himself spent a lot of time asking questions about popcorn: For much of his career, he was an agricultural scientist. (Photo: Wikimedia)

In his delightful new book Wonder: Childhood and the Lifelong Love of Science, Yale psychologist Frank C. Keil explores the ways in which young kids are hard-wired to use all their considerable cognitive powers to discover the big and beautiful world around them. In it, he ruminates on all the joy they take in asking why and how about everything that catches their attention. And he bemoans the way so many of them are taught by the adults around them, all too soon, to stop doing that.

There certainly wasn’t much room for wonder at the elementary schools I attended. As a mom and a teacher, though, I’ve discovered that it’s easy to carve out space for it every day. Sometimes, it’s even hiding in the most unlikely places. Like a bowl of popcorn.

Because even this simple snack is full of hows and whys. This week, I explore a few of them, offer a method of sorts for shrinking it, and, in case all the food-related wondering starts to perk up your appetite, share my favorite recipe for popcorn balls.