Popcorn Possibilities

If you haven't figured this out yet, I'm a foodie. I like to share my knowledge and experience of food with others, so I signed up for a mahalo answers account mainly to answer questions in the food and drink category, where people are looking for a recipe or a suggestion for dinner, etc. One day there was a question from a company called Kernel Season's, asking which three flavors of popcorn should they offer at an upcoming event.

This company's goal seems to be revolutionizing the way the world looks at popcorn, by offering flavored seasoning for popcorn. They have the basic kettle corn, butter, and caramel; flavors most already associate with popcorn, but then there are some for the more daring like sour cream & onion, BBQ, ranch, apple cinnamon, and chocolate marshmallow. I was super excited and contacted the company to find out if any of the seasonings were gluten free. Their reply was that they reformulated all their seasoning to be gluten free 6 months ago and are currently working on updating all their nutritional and allergen information. I was stoked; now I just needed to find it.

It's carried by some grocery stores and Walmart, so I looked and found it on the popcorn aisle, but they only had the common flavors: butter, nacho Cheddar, and white Cheddar; the flavors the store probably thought would sell the best. I was slightly bummed because I wanted to try out the sour cream and onion or the chocolate marshmallow, but I love cheese, so I bought the white Cheddar, hoping that it would create a similarity to one of my favorite childhood snacks: Smartfood, (white cheddar cheese popcorn).

Last night I finally had some time to sit and watch a movie and pop a bag of popcorn. I followed the instructions: shake a cap full of seasoning into 1 bag of popcorn, close the bag up, and shake. The verdict.......their white Cheddar needs some work. It was initially too salty, so I will try it again and add less than recommended, but there was a slight cheese flavor, just not what I was hoping for. Now that doesn't mean it isn't good (because I have high standards for anything that is cheese flavored), or that the other flavors aren't good. I do still want to try at least one other flavor, but the white Cheddar let me down a little. There are recipes for each flavor online, as they can be used to season vegetables, make dips, etc., so I don't think the $4 ticket price was a complete waste. My point to all of this is to get you thinking about branching out your taste buds and try something new, whether it's a flavored popcorn, a new vegetable, or a new protein.