Popcorn Seasoning Distributors

Popcorn is popping up in more places than you might expect.

The whole-grain, high-fiber, low-calorie snack is joining the ranks of coffee and chocolate, with consumers seeking out heirloom varieties of pop-at-home kernels instead of microwaveable, commodity versions.

Chefs and seasoning suppliers also have jumped on to the popcorn trend.

In St. Louis, Mosaic restaurants downtown and in Des Peres garnish a plate of pork tenderloin and brussels sprouts with spiced popcorn. The Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar downtown dresses up popcorn with a number of interesting seasonings, including smoky paprika, spicy wasabi, sweet mocha and savory chai.

At Clayton’s Little Country Gentleman, which takes its name from an heirloom variety of sweet corn that dates to the 1890s, chef-owner Mike Randolph recently paired halibut with popcorn, popcorn puree and popcorn shoots (intensely sweet greens that grow from sprouting popcorn).

Half & Half, Little Country Gentleman’s shared-space sister restaurant, serves grits for brunch made from coarsely ground local popcorn. The kernels for all of Randolph’s dishes come from Yellow Tree Farm in Fenton.

“Popcorn is very versatile, with tons of possible textures,” Randolph said. “Most of all, it’s a familiar flavor.”

Heirloom popcorn refers to varieties that have not been changed by hybridization or genetic modification since their original breeding hundreds or thousands of years ago. Modern commercial crops have been bred to increase the size of popped kernels, but critics say they lack the full flavor and airy crispness of heirloom versions.

Kernels are quite easy to pop on a stovetop; no fancy equipment needed. Perfect popcorn requires absolutely no more than corn, a little oil, a heavy saucepan, a lid and about four minutes of attention. (Seriously, I burned less popcorn cooking bowl after bowl of stovetop batches for this story than in a lifetime of nuking bags in a microwave.)

From there, crunch away as-is or toss in anything from melted butter and salt to coconut oil and curry powder. Chopped rosemary and grated parmesan make a nice popcorn power duo. Heat-seekers can experiment with dashes of Tabasco or their favorite hot sauce.

Popcorn also is inexpensive. Unpopped heirloom kernels usually come in 1-pound-or-more packages and cost much less per ounce than microwave popcorn.

Depending on variety, kernels can be blackish-purple, only to appear lily white when popped. Or they can be baby-size and nearly hull-free (no annoying remnants stuck in your teeth).

Simple Recipe with Snack Seasonings & Chickpeas

I recently started buying dried chickpeas because they are tasty, pretty healthy and make a good snack without seasonings. One thing I did notice was that at $4 a bag they were a tad pricey, so I went in search of a recipe to make my new favorite snack at home.

The recipe I found made making crispy chickpeas sound easier than it ended up being for me. After draining and rinsing the can of chickpeas the recipe says to put them on a baking sheet with parchment paper and bake them at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. The problem with this process is that is it basically drying the chickpeas, which creates a decent amount of smoke. So every time I opened my oven door to make sure they weren’t burning my smoke alarm went off. Yep…three times my smoke alarm went off (sorry to all of my neighbors in my apartment building).

After the 30 minutes, I pulled the chickpeas out and turned the oven off without trying them because I didn’t want to set the smoke alarm off again. It turns out the chickpeas were yummy and crispy on the outside but still mushy on the inside. They probably needed to bake another 30 minutes, but I was so done with dealing with my smoke detector that I didn’t put them back in.

The recipe says to use two tablespoons of olive oil with your choice of sweet or salty seasonings. I used less than two tablespoons of olive oil and then a bunch of cinnamon and some sugar. What resulted was a bowl of sweet, crunchy little bites of chickpea! They didn’t turn out nearly as crispy as the store-bought ones, but I’m guessing if my smoke detector wasn’t so finicky I would have gotten them perfect.

DIY do or don’t? These chickpea snacks are definitely great, but I’m not sure the hour bake time and the multiple rude awakenings from my smoke detector are worth saving $3 when I want these as a treat. On the positive side…the brand of crispy chickpeas I buy doesn’t have a sweet flavor, so these cinnamon and sugar ones I made were something pretty unique. Maybe one day (when I’m living somewhere that doesn’t mind being smoked out and having a smoke detector go off constantly) I’ll try this recipe again. Have you ever made crispy chickpeas? What flavor combinations have you tried? Also, if you are wholesale producer look for some local spice distributors for additional snack seasonings to "spice things up" a bit!!