On Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:55:28 -0800, Mark Thorson >
wrote:

>I used to buy Trader Joe's popcorn until several months
>ago when they changed it. It used to be that nearly
>all the popcorn was ball-shaped rather than the more
>common octopus shape, and I really prefer ball-shaped
>pieces.
>
>According to Wikipedia, in the business these are
>both called flakes, the ball-shaped type being a
>mushroom flake and the octopus-shape type being
>a butterfly flake.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popcorn...sion_and_yield
>
>And popcorns are available that produce 100%
>mushroom flakes or 100% butterfly flakes.
>Trader Joe's must have swiched from the former
>to the latter.
>
>I used to eat a lot of popcorn, and I tried many
>brands. I wonder why no commercial unpopped popcorn
>is available in stores of the type that makes
>mushroom flakes? If I were still buying popcorn,
>that's what I would want.

Interesting post. I make popcorn for caramel corn frequently and have
found the best I can get comes from a place in central Illinois called
Farm and Fleet.

http://www.farmandfleet.com/catalog/...=030102003&p=1

I don't think they're the hybrid ones but there are lots of the
mushroom flakes in the batches. I didn't know what the difference was
I just new they were nicer than grocery store stuff.

Lou