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<\/a>With the Driftless Film Festival<\/a> going on this weekend and a recent trip to the Rural Route 1 popcorn store, I couldn’t help but think about why movies and popcorn are so intertwined in American culture.\u00a0 My\u00a0research\u00a0brought me to a man named Charles Cretor.\u00a0 Born in Ohio, he was a hard-working man who took whatever job he could get to earn a living.\u00a0 In the late 1800’s he built up enough money to purchase\u00a0and manage a candy store.\u00a0 Prominently displayed in the store was a peanut roaster, a popular draw at the time.\u00a0 The roaster he had and other current models were not up to his standards so the bold businessman sold his shop to concentrate on building a better machine.<\/p>\n C. Cretors & Company<\/a>\u00a0was formed.\u00a0 To survive in the business he had to come up with other ways to use utilize his machines like roasting coffee and parching corn (gently cooking the kernels gently until it has expanded and softened a bit).\u00a0 The natural progression was making a better\u00a0popcorn.\u00a0 Popcorn vendors at the time used a wire basket to pop corn over flame then melted butter was poured over it.\u00a0 The result was a soggy and unpopular snack food.\u00a0 In 1893, Charles patented the process and the machine for popping corn in a lard and seasoning mixture.\u00a0 The product was excellent.\u00a0 Its major debut was at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago.\u00a0 No one wanted to buy it, the public didn’t want to pay for experimental food so Charles gave it away.\u00a0 Who doesn’t like free food?\u00a0 People couldn’t\u00a0get enough of it ever since.\u00a0 Soon, popcorn vendors started setting up their carts outside of movie theaters.\u00a0 Noting its popularity, theater owners bought their own popcorn machine to set up inside the theaters so that they could generate more profit.\u00a0 So there you go, popcorn plus movies equals happy people and a happy house (except for the outside vendor I suppose).<\/p>\n Delicious Popcorn<\/em><\/p>\n Now let me take you decades forward to\u00a0Rural Route 1 Popcorn<\/a> in Monfort, WI.\u00a0 It is a part of Biddick Inc. which started out as a seed corn company in 1906 when Elmer Biddick made his first sale.\u00a0 In 1983, an opportunity to diversify led the company to start developing the best seeds for gourmet popping corn.\u00a0 The store in Montfort showcases the variety of flavors available.\u00a0 On a recent delicious\u00a0trip I purchased a bucket each of the cheddar sour cream <\/em>and\u00a0a seasonal specialty called apple harvest <\/em>( a mix of cinnamon, caramel, apple and white fudge).\u00a0 *More to come about this special place.\u00a0 If you’re going to be in Southwest Wisconsin for the fall color this weekend, a visit to the shop is a must.\u00a0 In the evening you can attend one of the six theaters participating in the Driftless Film Festival<\/a>.\u00a0 I think most of them serve Rural Route 1 popcorn.\u00a0 Enjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the Driftless Film Festival going on this weekend and a recent trip to the Rural Route 1 popcorn store, I couldn’t help but think about why movies and popcorn are so intertwined in American culture.\u00a0 My\u00a0research\u00a0brought me to a man named Charles Cretor.\u00a0 Born in Ohio, he was a hard-working man who took whatever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133,32,91,15],"tags":[182,344,343],"class_list":["post-3494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-culture","category-driftless-area-towns","category-events","category-if-youre-ever-in","tag-driftless-film-festival","tag-popcorn","tag-rural-route-1-popcorn","has-featured-image"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3494"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5897,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494\/revisions\/5897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/ruralroute1popcorn2.jpeg\" "\\"ruralroute1popcorn\\"")
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