We were camping in Yellowstone, as you may remember from a previous post. After dinner we started a campfire, as did our neighbors. We were enjoying the fire, Thing 2 had us dance around singing a silly song, we sang some real campfire songs, and we made s'mores. [On a side note, eating s'mores does not combine neatly with having a mustache].
Our neighbors had no marshmallows, but did make JiffyPop over their campfire. Thing1 thought this was really cool and asked if we could make popcorn the next night. So the next day we stopped by the store and picked up some JiffyPop. But this story isn't titled 'Popcorn', now is it?
One can only drive by so many bison before the story of the pioneers using buffalo chips as fuel for their fires is mentioned by one (or both) know-it-all parents. The Things were amused and intrigued by this idea of burning poop, so we hit upon the idea of 'poopcorn' - cooking our popcorn over a buffalo chip fire.
After returning to camp, I went on a chip hunt. With the number of bison around, and their prodigious pooping ability, it did not take long to find a well-aged patty. After supper, we built a campfire, and when we decided the time was ripe (ha ha), on went the chip.
How does a buffalo chip burn? Not as well as the bone-dry lodgepole pine branches we had been using in the fire, but a cheery yellow flame licked (ugh) around the edges of the chip. And while there was a slight odor, it wasn't any worse than regular wood smoke.
The unburned center of the chip blocked most of the heat, so we waited until it was mostly consumed (yeck) before starting our JiffyPop.
The experiment was a success. We enjoyed delicious poopcorn, just as the pioneers must have 125 years ago.
And we got a funny story out of it, too.
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