Chinese street vendor's explosive popcorn making contraption

Because EXPLOSION. Because EXPLOSION ON THE STREET. Because FUCK THE GOVERNMENT I AM MAKING POPCORN.

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No. Street vendors with Popcorn Cannons are a pretty common sight all over china.

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There are worse,. much much worse ways to go. I remember a guy in Saskatoonā€¦ it involved a cupcake cannon and goatse. That is all I am going to sayā€¦ a sad day.

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yeah, and to up your odds, make sure to get your popcorn with ā€œbutterā€.

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The video didnā€™t show whether the MB crew used 3 cups with the first method, but it didnā€™t look like it. It would also be a lot faster if you werenā€™t heating the container from cold; the vendor wouldnā€™t make any money if every bag of popcorn took 10 minutes to make.

Chinese street food preparation is often fascinating, skillful and kind of gross when you think about it too much. For a more extreme example of all of these things:

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A coal fired popcorn vendorā€¦ I wonder why they have air quality issues over there.

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I donā€™t care how badass your cooking method is. Does it taste any better?

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Well, at least he broke off the piece that was in his mouth.

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Interesting. A street vendor can do that in China. Over here in the Land Of The FreeĀ® he would be tasered, beaten, arrested and prosecuted because loud bangs outside of an industrial setting == terrorism.

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Itā€™s original process behind how breakfast cereal is made.

Interesting video and article with some background on the process:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/08/puffed-the-magic-of-cereal.html

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The street vendors where I used to live had a variety of cereals, both puffed and uncooked. They didnā€™t tend to use this method; they had a big cauldron that rotated like one of those small cement mixers, and would often have flavorings mixed in (popcorn was usually chocolate or plain). Iā€™d often buy plain puffed wheat, as it cost about 20-30 cents for a large bag and western cereals would often be upwards of $4 for a small packet. It also didnā€™t have a lot of oil or flavorings, so there was less risk from gutter oil.

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The real secret to itā€™s flavor is the dirty sack itā€™s blown into.

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Iā€™ve encountered a street vendor making a variety of things with such a device. Popcorn can be popped normally but the other stuff he was doing couldnā€™t be.

Donā€™t eat such stuff, thoughā€“thereā€™s a big safety hazard. I wouldnā€™t worry too much about the bag as itā€™s repeatedly subjected to live steam but the lead seal between the lid and the chamber is another matterā€¦

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There was also a song that went ā€œThis is the cereal thatā€™s shot from guns. This is the cereal thatā€™s shot from guns." set to The 1812 Overture.

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Does anyone have any real clue on how to build one of these safely? I do quite a few food festivals, and this idea is perfect for a show. It could be made safe with a redesign with pressure release valves or some other safety features. If you could retrofit some existing technology, even better. If it could be kept hot, reloaded quickly and had a high throughput, itā€™d make a great, high margin festival food producer. Itā€™s got a great show, and things like the ā€œdirty bagā€ could be fixed with a food grade fix like stainless steel mesh or some other container. Kettle corn uses surplus large bakery mixing bowls in custom welded frames with propane burners. This street vendor is still churning out popcorn faster than any kettle corn vendor Iā€™ve seen.

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sometimes the next video image in youtube makes me think.

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