誰發(fā)明了在影院賣爆米花

　　誰發(fā)明了在影院賣爆米花

　　In the 1920s, movie palaces rose up around the country like so many portals into a glamorous world. After you bought a ticket, you might pass through gilded archways and ascend a grand staircase lighted by a crystal chandelier to find your velvet seat. Eating was not meant to be part of the experience, says Andrew F. Smith, author of “Popped Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America.” Theater owners feared that audiences would strew popcorn and peanuts on those crimson carpets. They hung signs discouraging people from bringing in food from vendors parked outside and didn’t sell it themselves.

　　20世紀(jì)20年代，電影院開始在全美興起，和其他許多新鮮事物一起，打開了一個(gè)通往精彩世界的大門。買上一張電影票，就可以走過鍍金拱門，走上一段恢弘的樓梯，在水晶吊燈照耀下找到你的絲絨座椅。吃東西本來并不包含在這種體驗(yàn)之內(nèi)，《“爆”文化：爆米花在美國的社會(huì)發(fā)展史》(Popped Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America)的作者安德魯·F·史密斯(Andrew F. Smith)說。影院主人擔(dān)心觀眾會(huì)把爆米花和花生灑在紅地毯上。他們豎起標(biāo)志，不鼓勵(lì)觀眾把從影院外的小販那里買到的食品帶入影院，影院自己也不出售零食。

　　A widow named Julia Braden in Kansas City, Mo., was one of the rare concessionaires who managed to talk her way inside. She persuaded the Linwood Theater to let her set up a stand in the lobby and eventually built a popcorn empire. By 1931, she owned stands in or near four movie theaters and pulled in more than $14,400 a year — the equivalent of $336,000 in today’s dollars. Her business grew even in the midst of the Depression, at the same time that thousands of elegant theaters went bust.

　　密蘇里州堪薩斯城一個(gè)名叫茱莉亞·布拉登(Julia Braden)的寡婦說服影院讓她入內(nèi)，成為獲得了這種稀有特許權(quán)的人之一。她說服林伍德影院讓她在大廳設(shè)攤位，最終建立起一個(gè)爆米花帝國。到1931 年，她在大約四家電影院擁有攤位，每年能賺1.44萬美元以上，相當(dāng)于如今的33.6萬美元。她的事業(yè)甚至在大蕭條期間還在發(fā)展，與此同時(shí)，數(shù)以千計(jì)的豪華影院宣告倒閉。

　　According to Smith, it’s impossible to establish who sold the first box of movie popcorn. For decades, vendors operated out of wagons parked near theaters, circuses and ballparks, selling a variety of snacks. But Braden seems to have been among the first to set up concessions linked to movie houses — and to pioneer a new business strategy: the money was in popcorn, not ticket sales. (That’s still true today. Movie theaters reap as much as 85 percent of their profits from concession sales.)

　　史密斯說，是誰初次在影院賣爆米花，如今已不可考。幾十年來，小販們都是在劇院、馬戲場(chǎng)和運(yùn)動(dòng)場(chǎng)附近停下車子，販賣各種零食。但布拉登那批人似乎是首批獲得與影院相關(guān)的特許經(jīng)營權(quán)的人，他們開創(chuàng)了一種全新的商業(yè)戰(zhàn)略：通過爆米花而不是電影票賺錢。這種策略如今還在生效。影院通過特許經(jīng)營獲得的利潤最高可達(dá)影院收入的85%。

　　In the mid-1930s, a manager named R. J. McKenna, who ran a chain of theaters in the West, caught on to this idea. An old man selling popcorn outside one of McKenna’s movie houses amassed enough money to buy a house, a farm and a store. McKenna installed a popcorn machine in the lobby and collected the proceeds — as much as $200,000 in 1938. With that kind of money rolling in, who cared about the rugs? McKenna lowered the price of tickets just to draw more people to his concession stand. By the 1940s, most theaters had followed suit, and soon the smell of melted butter wafted through lobbies. One entrepreneur of the era offered the following advice: “Find a good popcorn location and build a theater around it.”

　　20世紀(jì)30年代中期，一個(gè)名叫R·J·麥坎納(R. J. McKenna)的影院經(jīng)理在西部經(jīng)營著連鎖影院，他把握住了這個(gè)創(chuàng)意。一個(gè)在麥坎納的某家影院外賣爆米花的老人賺的錢攢起來足夠買一棟房子、一個(gè)農(nóng)場(chǎng)和一個(gè)商店。麥坎納在影院大廳里裝了一臺(tái)爆米花機(jī)，以此贏利，1938年賺的錢達(dá)到20萬美元。有這么多錢源源涌入，誰還在乎會(huì)不會(huì)把地毯弄臟?麥坎納降低了電影票價(jià)，吸引更多人來特許經(jīng)營的攤位買東西。到20世紀(jì)40年代，大多數(shù)影院都效仿他的做法，很快黃油融化的香味就傳遍了一座座影院大廳。當(dāng)時(shí)的一個(gè)創(chuàng)業(yè)者提出了這樣一條建議：“找一個(gè)好的爆米花攤位，再圍繞它蓋一個(gè)影院。”

　　POP STARS

　　爆米花之星

　　Max Robbins is the director of research at Ag Alumni Seed, where he breeds and tests popcorn plants.

　　馬克斯·羅賓斯(Max Robbins)是奧格校友種子協(xié)會(huì)(Ag Alumni Seed)的研究顧問，專門培育和測(cè)試用于爆米花的爆裂種玉米種植。

　　What goes into making a new variety? We use classical plant breeding, and one of the traits we look for is pop expansion — how big the kernel is after it pops.

　　新品種有什么特色呢?我們使用經(jīng)典育種方法，其中我們想達(dá)到的一項(xiàng)重要目標(biāo)就是爆裂幅度，也就是玉米粒裂開后能有多大。

　　Why is size so important? People prefer the larger-kernel corn. The flake has to be large and attractive. Also, by the way, there are two kinds of flake shapes: butterfly and mushroom. The butterfly flake — that’s what you’re going to see in the movie theater or what you’re going to buy to pop at home. And then you’ve probably seen what we call a mushroom flake when you’re buying caramel corn.

　　為什么大小那么重要呢?人們都喜歡顆粒飽滿的玉米。米花應(yīng)該膨大誘人。順便說一句，米花裂開有兩種形狀：蝴蝶狀和蘑菇狀。蝴蝶狀的米花就是影院里買到那種米花，或者在家自制的米花。如果買了制作焦糖米花的玉米，那就會(huì)看到我們所謂蘑菇狀的米花了。

　　How do you test new varieties of popcorn? We use a machine that’s just like what you’d see at a movie theater. It has been modified with a giant graduated cylinder on its bottom, where normally the guy at the movie theater would be scooping popcorn into a box. That’s so we can measure the volume of popped kernels.

　　你們是怎樣測(cè)試新品種的米花的?我們使用和影院里的爆米花差不多的機(jī)器，不過影院里賣爆米花的人都是把米花掃進(jìn)一個(gè)盒子，我們這里，米花是落進(jìn)底部一個(gè)帶刻度的圓筒狀容器。這樣我們就可以計(jì)算顆粒爆裂后的量。

　　So you must end up eating a lot of popcorn. People will stop by and pick up bags. Some people feed it to their chickens.

　　所以你們肯定吃了不少爆米花啦。來探訪的人都會(huì)拿走大包米花，有些人拿它們喂雞。