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What’s that familiar sound and the reason why your impatient tongue is about to be burned for the umpteenth time?
Why it’s January 19th and it’s National Popcorn Day.
Thanks(?) to my friend Jill Jaracz, co-host of the Olympic Fever podcast, for challenging me to find a podcast episode related to this day.
- Rec 1: Footnoting History – Pop! Pop! Pop! A Brief History of Popcorn
- Rec 2: Olympic Fever – Adam Stirn, Olympic Zamboni Driver (By Jill Jaracz)
- Rec 3: Hear Her sports – Sibyl Jacobson Going Great Guns
- Rec 4 bonus: Food in Five – A brief history of popcorn
The Podcast Gumbo podcast playlist, made from love, will include almost all the episodes mentioned in this podcast going forward to make it easier for you to enjoy all these recommendations.
Do you want more podcast recommendations? Sign up for my Podcast Gumbo newsletter which recommends 3 podcast episodes every Wednesday.
You can also find me on Twitter at @paulkondo.
Thanks for listening,
Paul
Transcript
Hey. This is Paul Kondo. This is the Podcast Gumbo podcast and I’ve got a rhetorical question for ya.
Are you like me and find those things we call National Days, like Cheeseball Day or worse, Moldy Cheese Day, amusing? Yeah, me too. So each week, I’ll have one of my podcast friends challenge me to find an episode related to one of those days and I’ll be releasing it on the actual day it occurs.
So, let’s get to it. What is today’s National Day?
Hey Paul, it’s Jill. I hear it’s National Popcorn Day so I’m making some to celebrate. And ok, maybe it’s dinner too. No judging. Here’s a popcorn-making pro tip – use safflower oil. Do you have any other popcorn trivia for me?
Now we are talking. Way to step up Jill and put some effort into your audio. Let’s see if anyone can top that in the future.
Today is January 19th and as Jill said, it’s National Popcorn Day.
So which one of you listeners doesn’t love popcorn? Can you watch a movie without a 4-quart bucket in front of you?
Are you an average American who eats 68 quarts of popcorn each year? Honestly, that seems like an Olympian task to eat that much. More Olympian may be never burning your impatient tongue from a bag of freshly nuked popcorn.
Luckily, I have an episode for you that won’t cause medical harm. If you love the stuff, you’ll want to learn more about popcorn from the Footnoting History podcast. It’s got about 35 minutes of the history of this particular popping kernel.
The one thing that stands out is how easy we have it now. Buy a box, throw a bag into the microwave and we’ve got a stinging hot bowl of fluffiness right in front of us. Back when popcorn was first made, they had issues. Think ashes and lard issues. Kudos to those pioneers that figured out a better way.
As a bonus, I listened to another episode about popcorn which I’ll also link to in the show notes. In it, the host talks about an astronaut popping corn in space. The visual almost made me crash my car from laughing so hard.
It may be a little early for baseball season so maybe enjoying a box of Cracker Jacks is not the way you would celebrate this day, but no matter. Head on over to the local theatre, pay $41 for a medium bucket combo, take a snapshot of the receipt and post it using #NationalPopcornDay.
Today’s challenge is from Jill Jaracz. I met Jill at Podcast Movement in 2018. We were in the same seminar and she asked a question about how to get a good recording while someone is rowing a boat.
The reason why is because Jill is the co-host with Alison Brown of the Olympic Fever podcast. Olympic Fever is created for fans of the greatest sporting event in the world – The Olympic Games.
One of my favorite episodes of Olympic Fever is when they interviewed an Olympic Zamboni Driver. Honestly, who watches any kind of ice sport and doesn’t want to drive a Zamboni sometime in their life?
As an aside, the next time the Winter Olympics come around and you’re near Boston, call me up and we’ll watch every curling match til our eyes bleed Scottish stones.
One of Jill’s favorite episodes is Sibyl Jacobson Going Great Guns on the Hear Her Sports podcast. Jill said she’s always inspired when someone takes up a sport later in life and excels. It gives her hope!
Personally, I don’t need hope because I’m content with peaking athletically at the age of 16. There’s a rumor that I don’t use a two-handed backhand in tennis anymore because I need one hand free for my beer.
As always, take a look at the show notes for links to all the podcasts mentioned in this episode as well as other life-altering information. To make it easy for you, there’s also a link to a podcast playlist that will contain all the episodes ever mentioned in this show.
See you next week sometime for another round of recommendations.
Are you still listening? Do you still want more podcast goodness? If so, get on over to podcastgumbo.com and subscribe to my newsletter today.