Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: old style popcorn butter

This is topic old style popcorn butter in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 04-29-2004, 05:03 PM:

back in the days when they used real butter at theaters, what did they use? Did they just buy butter from a grocery store and melt it down? I want to do this at home, but I have heard that there is a shelf life issue as well as water content in the butter being high, will make the corn mushy.

Any old timers out there know?

Josh

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-29-2004, 05:28 PM:

If you want to make your own popcorn butter at home, take a stick or two of regular stick butter and melt it down. Don't use that fake stuff that comes in a tub and don't use margarine. That shit is just yucky when you melt it down!

You can do it in a microwave oven if you want to but, honestly, it's easier if you use a pan and do it on the stove. Just chop the sticks of butter into small pieces first. Don't turn the heat up too high or else you'll burn the butter. (Or worse! You'll start a fire!) Just use medium heat. A little less, even. It doesn't take much heat to melt butter.

When your butter is all melted to a liquid, pour it into a glass measuring cup. Let it sit for a while. A bunch of yellowish sludge will float to the top. When the butter is all seperated, skim or pour off the sludge and keep the clear, yellow stuff on the bottom.

If you look around your kitchen, one of your womenfolk (or whoever is Head Chef of the family) might have a gravy seperator. It looks like a measuring cup but the spout comes out the bottom.

www.WilliamsSonoma.com

Whatever method you use, you need to seperate the fat out from the flavorful liquid butter or else, as you mentioned, your popcorn will get all mushy on you.

If you really want to get funky, take a little bit of crushed garlic or whatever spices turn you on and mix it with the liquid butter before you put it on your popcorn.

Or... If you want to dispense with all the dicking around get yourself one of these:

www.WhirleyPop.com

The best popcorn you'll get outside of a movie theater!
Kids think it's fun to turn the crank. (With supervision, of course!) Furthermore, it's just as fast as microwave popcorn! Whirley Pop is 1,000,000 times better than microwave! Microwave SUX! [puke]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-29-2004, 05:28 PM:

Maybe one of the candy companies would sell you one jug of Odell's butterfat. That's good stuff and has a long shelf life. Normally it comes in 4-gallon cases and costs over $100 a case.

Posted by Pete Wolla (Member # 1581) on 04-29-2004, 05:47 PM:

We use real butter on the popcorn at the tioga theatre. I think the water comes from condensation on the lid of the dispenser. when the butter is cold and hard in the dispenser poke a hole in the solid butter on two sides and you can get a small amount of water from under the butter but not much. with a large bag at $3.00 it's a bargain

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 04-29-2004, 06:46 PM:

Odell's 100% Real Anhydrous Butter Fat

Only 4 times more expensive than the Golden Shower.

www.popntop.com

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 04-29-2004, 07:05 PM:

We tried the butterfat thing, but it was too expensive. Thanks for all the advice [Smile]

Meanwhile, I think I'll put the tioga guys on my list of places to 'dork' this summer. When do you guys run? A lot of theatres up here only run on weekends. Look for a guy on a red and black crotch rocket [Smile]

Josh

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 04-30-2004, 06:33 AM:

like mike and ian, we use the butterfat. it is indeed by far the most expensive item on our concessions invoice, and we give the stuff away (with purchase of a popcorn, of course), but it's worth it. that fake "topping" crap can really stink up a theater.

actually, the only place i ever eat popcorn is the red vic movie house, where they serve it in reusable bowls and ladle the butter on!

carl

Posted by Mike Fitzgerald (Member # 1304) on 04-30-2004, 12:46 PM:

I used to use Odell butterfat in the theaters I ran in the mid 80's. I had gotten into the habit of grapping a cup every night filling it with popcorn and pouring the butterfat on so I would have a snack in the office while I cashed out. This was fine until I had to have bloodwork donw for a insurance policy the results came back and the results were 4 x normal. They put me in a risk class. The butter was great but it was on its way to killing me. Still enjoy the taste but very much in moderation now.

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 04-30-2004, 07:40 PM:

yeah, that's why i don't eat the stuff (with the above noted exception). don't drink soda either. what's okay every once in a while will kill you if you do it every day.

i don't know what's in "topping" but my gut feeling and the smell tell me it's none too healthy either.

carl

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-30-2004, 08:15 PM:

Odell's real is my first choice...even over the Land-O-Lakes or other butter sticks...all that Odell's has done for you is to remove the water content that you need to skim off anyway. It is the smarter way to have butter.

Buttered Popcorn is a treat in my book and as such...should not be a major portion of one's diet. But when I have buttered popcorn, it better have real butter on it...I simply won't buy the oil that theatres put on.

As far as imitation buttery toppings go...Odell's gets my vote again with Super-Kist II. It too will burn if overheated.

Steve

Posted by Pete Wolla (Member # 1581) on 05-03-2004, 09:36 PM:

open fri sat and sun at 8:00 i dont do butter but ask for the triple bypass special.helps keep the tioga medical center running

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 2038) on 05-05-2004, 12:43 PM:

Real butter here, one of our part-timers works for a major food chain and buys it with his discount and we buy it as we need it so it doesn't go bad.

Posted by Dino Panagiotopoulos (Member # 1579) on 05-05-2004, 02:29 PM:

We use 100% real Lactantia butter.........very yummy. Also carry Becel as an alternative.