a popcorn revival

SHELLSBURG, Iowa — Corn confronts you at every turn in Iowa. It blurs past the car window for hours. Stop for gas and you’re likely to find a patch growing out back.

Much of it will fuel cars, feed cattle and sweeten food. But a half-hour’s drive from Cedar Rapids, in front of Gene and Lynn Mealhow’s sturdy farmhouse, ears of corn no bigger than a child’s hand grow from seeds the family can trace back to the 1850s. The small, pearly flint corn has never been genetically modified or hybridized. Its only purpose is to pop into small, crisp puffs that taste of pure toasted corn.

Mr. Mealhow, 59, a soil expert who still looks very much like the hippie drummer he once was, spent years driving around trying to sell his precious popcorn. Now, his Tiny but Mighty brand is on the shelves of Whole Foods. For a family like his, that’s akin to winning the lottery.

The Mealhows are part of a popcorn revival, the latest reinvention of an enduring American snack that has been retooled every few generations to fit shifts in technology and culinary fashion.