He stands in the
kitchen, filled with terror. He knows his
wife will be home in minutes, and he forgot to
cook dinner. He can't start cooking it now, even, because the corn his wife left out for him to cook is dried, and needs to be rehydrated first. What is he to do?
He has put the meat and potatoes in the oven, but.. the corn! He cannot cook the corn yet.. oh, what to do? What to do?
He searches the cupboards, trying to come up with something to save his butt before his wife gets home.. Suddenly he sees it - the frying pan. In a flash of inspiration, he puts the dried corn in and begins to fry it in butter, all the time praying that it will end up as something edible, and not as an inedible charred mass.
A loud noise. An explosion in the frying pan. The man, facing away from the cooking corn, jumps and turns quickly. The corn is going everywhere! With a burst of speed, he grabs a lid and clamps it on the pan, thus containing the volatile contents. It continues to make unprecedented exploding sounds, shaking and rattling the lid. Half paralysed with fear, he slowly turns the heat off and takes the pan off the stove, and sighs with relief as the explosions slow down, then finally stop.
But these white fluffy lumps already cover the kitchen floor. Unable to rest, he sets about cleaning them up. Then he wonders: "how does it taste?"
His wife walks in minutes later, and is shocked to find on her dinner plate a pile of fluffy white objects as well as the expected meat and veges. Tasting one, she declares, "It needs a little more
salt."
The rest is history.
This is, based on
human psychology and
whatnot, the most accurate known prediction of how
popcorn was created.