Roy F. McCampbell's Blog

National Popcorn Day

Five Food Finds about Popcorn

• Popcorn is the world’s most popular snack food.

• Popcorn is also the most profitable snack food, with over 1 thousand percent mark up.

• Evidence of popcorn from 3600 BCE was found in New Mexico and even earlier evidence dating to perhaps as early as 4700 BCE was found in Peru.

• Some popcorn has been found in early 1900s to be a purple color.

• At least six localities (all in the Midwestern United States) claim to be the “Popcorn Capital of the World”: Ridgway, Illinois; Valparaiso, Indiana; Van Buren, Indiana; Schaller, Iowa; Marion, Ohio; and North Loup, Nebraska.

On This Day in Food History…

1825 The first U.S. patent for food storage in cans was granted to Ezra Daggett & Thomas Kensett of New York City, after developing the process in 1819.(it took over 30 years to invent the can open. Before then…

(This article appeared in the latest issue of the Illinois AAUP’s newspaper, Illinois Academe.)

By Keith R. Johnson, Oakton Community College

The Great Recession impacted everyone, but it contributed to a real hit for public college and university adjunct faculty. Pressures on budgets over decades have slowly increased higher education’s dependence on adjunct faculty. Now they are a majority of teachers at all levels, and an astonishing 80 percent at community colleges. They form a pool of poorly paid, qualified teachers who can be drawn on (or let go) as needed. But in 2013 new laws exacerbated this long term trend to pay a majority of faculty inadequately and deny them benefits and job security.

National Gourmet Coffee Day

Five Food Finds about Coffee

• Until the invention of vacuum packed coffee tins in 1900 by Hill Bros. Coffee, almost every city or large town in America had their own local coffee roasters.

• In East Africa and Yemen, coffee was used in native religious ceremonies that were in competition with the Christian Church. As a result, the Ethiopian Church banned its secular consumption until the reign of Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia.

• Coffee berries, which contain the coffee seeds, are produced by several species of small evergreen bush of the genus Coffea. The two most commonly grown are also the most highly regarded Coffea arabica, and the “robusta” form of the hardier Coffea canephora.

• An important export commodity, coffee was the top agricultural export for twelve countries in 2004.

• Preparing coffee in a French press leaves more oils in the drink compared with coffee prepared with…

The latest issue of the AFT American Educator publication contains an article that presents “Myths of the Common Core” and responds to each one with “facts.”

Tim Farley, principal of the Ichabod Crane Elementary/Middle School in Valatie, New York, did not agree with the publication’s definition of the facts. Here is his rebuttal:

The magazine contains an “informational” article about the Common Core standards. Over the past few years, AFT has received millions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has invested heavily in the development, evaluation, and dissemination of the Common Core. Below each of the “Myths of the Common Core”, AFT has enumerated some “FACTS.” What I have added to each “Myth/FACT” is what I consider to be the “TRUTH” (or information that was conveniently left out).

1. “The standards tell us what to teach.”

FACT: The Common Core State Standards define what students need…