Where to buy microwave popcorn

I'm looking for microwave popcorn, if there is a choice, the "extra butter" or "extreme butter" type.

I've asked people I work with and they say they haven't seen it and don't know where to find it. They grumbled something about "I guess Germans don't eat popcorn so much like Americans do..."

I've looked in Plus, Tengelmann, Lidl, and WalMart, and could not find it in any of the stores.

I've also gave up and looked for REGULAR popcorn that you pop in a pan in oil, still no luck.

Does popcorn it even exist in Munich? I haven't been out to see a movie, but I'm starting to wonder if it's even there!

(PS: and what's with the Paprika, can't they make a potato chip without it?)

BadlandZ, I will personally take you by the hand and show you no less than three different kinds of popcorn at, yes, WalMart.
They have their own house brand, which is edible, and some American kind, which is very good, and the he-man, do-it-yourself kernel kind. The ready made kinds are available in salted/buttered and sweet (ugh! but that's just my opinion). WalMart keeps the "normal" popcorn in the vegetable department, the American stuff is with the American section.
Tengelmann should have popcorn as well but I cannot swear.

Microwave Popcorn (a brand called Act II) is available at Hertie, Hauptbahnhof. Go to the supermarket in the basement and near the sushi is the American section.

Yeah and it is super salty!! Yum Yum

They sold microwave popcorn in individual packages at my local Minimal. It was a German brand (I use past tense, because I don't live there anymore).

Look like in a supermarket?
Instant popcorn in the larger places, raw popcorn to make yourself in the standard supermarkets.
The smallest low end guys don't carry it.

Yeah, German flavours of crisps are crap, but slowly real flavours are creeping in from the UK and Ireland.

I remember once I was working ina busy irish bar on a Friday night and a german came up to the bar and asked for a bag of "chips" (sic)
So I goes "Do you want ready salted, salt and vinegar, cheese and onion, roast beef, smokey baccon, roast chicken, hedgehog or prawn cocktail" ?
He looks at me blankly.
So I repeat "Do you want ready salted, salt and vinegar, cheese and onion, roast beef, smokey baccon, roast chicken, hedgehog or prawn cocktail" ?
He turns to me and goes "Don#t you have any paprika flavour?"

Wow, I didn't even see an American section in WalMart! I walked every single isle, TWICE, looking at every shelf too. What area is the house brand in, the American section also? with chips? With some other snacks?


Cool, that's sorta what I'm looking for, and I'll be there Monday too! :-) Again with an American section, can't wait to see it. Thanks.

Oh dear, don't get your hopes up! It's peanut butter and relish and sweet (honey) mustard etc. But they do have Crisco, bless them, and now my pie crusts are as they should be.

This small grocery store here has ACTII popcorn, two kinds, salted and sweet. Not sure if the salted is the equivalent of butter in the States as I haven't tried it yet, but I am pretty sure you can find it at stores in Munich as well if they even have it at that small one. I will keep my eyes open when I'm in Munich next week.

I use to enjoy a steamy hot bag of microwave popcorn until my husband said to me the hydrogenated fats used to make my microwave popcorn is very bad for me.
So now I take a small paper bag and put the kernels in and nuke. I have steamy microwave popcorn, without the fat.

You can use Crisco to make pastry?

Dont they make Routers?

I've seen some at EDEKA, in fact EDEKA at the Munich Airport.

Act II is the brand that they sell at Walmart too. The American section is (or used to be) at the very back on the right-hand side.

Loads of the stuff at V-Markt on Balanstr, american stuff that i don't remember the name of in a dull red box and Actll as well.

most of the larger grocery shops like Rewe, Tenglemann and Edeka have popcorn. Plus has it sometimes, but not often, forget Penny, they don't carry it- unless they do an American week.

Some of the Reformhauses also have it (found that weird too), but they do have it- comes in a greenbox. The Rewe by me has it in 2 sections- the Chip/cracker area and the BioFood area.

as for chips- Chipfresh or FunnyFresh has Cheese and Onion, SourCream and Onion and currently a flavour- Western BBQ (kind of like that one- sort of like smokey bbq sauce).

As a popcorn lover, there are really only two kinds that do the job. Movie popcorn, with the extra grease, or 'butter', from the tap (I don't think they have that here) and maybe a bit of extra salt, depending on the theater.

Homemade from scratch. If you don't have a dedicated pan, use a regular sauce pan and cover about 3/4 of the bottom of the pan with kernals. Then add enough olive oil (others work just as well, but olive oil is healthier) to coat the corn. Cover, heat on medium and remove before it burns (that's helpful, I know). You can add the salt before or after popping. I also like to melt some real butter and drizzle it over the freshly popped corn.

The second option, even with the butter and salt, is way healthier, but the first a guilty pleasure.

Microwave popcorn can be ok, but it will never compare to either of the above. And Jiffy Pop is more fun.

The only Act II flavour they had yesterday was "Cinema Sweet", but Hertie also stocks a bigger selection of the brand I think bluedave was referring to: "Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn" for EUR 2.19 a box.

NO!!! Olive oil has a very low "burning temperature" thus the poly-unsaturates are quickly converted to saturates, olive oil should never be used for frying anything. Thistle oil (Distel-Öl) is much healthier for frying.

Dats the one, ty.

I stoppped eating microwave popcorn, not because of it's direct dietary issues, but rather because of the bag the corn is popped in...

This is a quick post on a Sunday night and so I am not putting 100% effort in here, but basically the bag contains chemicals (fluorotelomers) that break down to polyfluorooctanic acid - PFOA. PFOA is a non degradable or officially "persistant organic pollutant" chemical, that has gotten into the food chain. PFOA

According to articles it has exists now as about 4-5 ppb (parts per billion) in the blood of the average American. According to a podcast from CBC's "Quirks and Quarks" it has been found in the meat of polar bears - unfortunatley, I can't find the link. Not many polar bears are sitting around with penguins having a Coke® and eating microwave popcorn while having parties on icebergs (BTW - polar bears are arctic, while penquins are antarctic - but digress).

The properties of these chemicals are what make the bag withstand the high temperature of the microwave, maintain humidity levels and make sure that every bite of your Orville Redenbackers is what you want.

Personally, I make my corn on the stove top with a bit of oil and salt, with loose corn that I buy at the Vic. Markt, and I never have any duds.

Anyway, despite whatever type of oil you use, sugar, salt whatever, microwave popcorn is really not that good for you.

Do your own research - make your own decision, eat it or don't, but know the facts.

Cam

WalMart in Munich (the one in Euro Industrie Park) - the American section is on the left side (in the food section) in the aisle behind the breads. It has moved around a bit. But, the only kinds of popcorn they are selling now are the Cinema Sweet and Salted. I used to buy the buttered flavor all the time but then they stopped selling it. Plus, it made my colleagues crazy. They said it smelled like burned mild (this, coming from smokers who couldn't smell shit if it was smeared on their faces). So, haven't see the butter flavored in awhile.

Aye the Germans are crazy, I got banned from my ex colleagues from drinking Marmite in the office.

@THM - I'm not convinced that popping corn qualifies as frying (it doesn't seem to get nearly as hot). I'd never use olive for frying generally, but experience shows it works well and has never caused problems for popping corn.

If I understand what it means to convert to a saturated oil, that means that the finished product will feel less greasy and taste crunchier. That's a good thing right?

@kitkat64 - Microwave popcorn should be banned in every office. The smell, when you're not partaking can be disgusting. And then, an extra 30 seconds cooking and the office smells like a toxic waste dump.

@Freiheit: saturated fat is the stuff that clogs up your blood vessels, therefore not the healthier option!

Ok, point taken, but only if cooking popcorn actually gets hot enough for that change to happen. Do you know?

If we forget my healthy remark, as a matter of taste (and texture) aren't saturated fats a better choice?

OK, just because I was annoyed that someone smoked in the hallway, I bought some MW popcorn at Walmart today. I got the salted flavor which is fine - American style. I smelled the place right up and I'm proud of it...

That's fair!

I bought some at Real today. Now I just need a microwave.

I just wanted to say I finally got some. We went to OEZ to find the music store, and on a chance wandered through Edeka, and I thought to look for it. They had "sweet" and "salted" and the sweet looked completely disgusting to me.

So, I grabbed the box that said sweet, and thought "I see it so infrequently, I'll get two" I reached back two deep in that row, and got two. It wasn't until I got home that I realized the box behind the salted one was "sweet." I guess I'll find out if it is as disgusting as it looks.

In this particular Edeka, I couldn't find an "American" section, and I saw no "butter" popcorn, so clearly no "extra" butter.

So, thank you all! Hopefully I can find some butter flavor eventually, I just don't get out that often I guess.

The 'salted' that you bought is our version of the butter flavored. It's not overly salted. The sweet one is like in the movie theaters here - sugar coated. It's OK

Ok, I've tried both. Now I have to vent. I strongly dislike "Cinema Sweet," what are they thinking? Who puts sugar on popcorn? Do they put sugar instead of salt and butter on baked potatoes too?

Do Germans not understand the concept of sweet vs salty? They are opposites! You BALANCE them in your diet, not just substitute everything for sweet if you can! I mean, we got something that I thought was Soy Sauce (called "Bamboo Garden Soja Sauce") the other day, and when I put it on my white rice, I found out it was sweet too! Gag! What the heck? Shall I put powdered sugar on my steak also?

By American standards, I don't use that much salt. When I go out to eat, I see people put way more salt on their food that I usually do. But here, I'm feeling like no one even uses it at all. The salt shakers here I have used in restaurants all seem completely clogged or tiny tiny holes, I once gave up, unscrewed the cap, poured some on my hand and then sprinkled a little on my food.

I feel like a pregnant woman having cravings. I had no idea how difficult living here would be on my appetite, I just want some Beef Jerky, (real) popcorn, something... Every time I turn around, there's another bakery, do they eat pastries as an entire meal, or do they just have them with EVERYTHING? It seems like are more Meier Bakeries in the little village of Gauting than there are 7-11's in Los Angeles! Somehow I've gained weight, yet I think I've probably only had about one meal a week that I would say I enjoyed.

And the "Salted" popcorn was bland... If I get it again, I'm going to have to figure out how to butter it myself (at that point, why microwave it anyway?).

I'm going to try to print the list of places people suggested on this thread, and if I have time I'll see if I can get to some of them this weekend. I swear, if I see Extra Butter popcorn in Germany, I'll buy as much as I can carry home. I've actually started to look for someplace that might mail-order it.

Maybe I'm just strange, but I rather liked the Cinema Sweet popcorn the 2nd time around.

Yeah, you have to try it a few times. It's like caramel corn but not as sweet.

I still prefer salty but don't mind the sweet now and again.

Looks as though BadlandZ needs to try Orville's Movie Theatre Butter popcorn, but I just thought I'd add two more brands I spotted at Rewe in the Fuenf Hoefen (in the Dried Fruits section) - no idea if they're any good: Seeberger has single packs and Kluth has boxes of three. You can choose between sweet and salty.

Thats 1...


That's 2...

Two sitings of Orville Redenbacher's popcorn. I could only dream it is Ultimate Butter, but if it's any kind of butter at all, with no "sweet" to it, I'll probably get as much as I can carry home on the S-Bahn. I think maybe this Saturday...

BadlandZ, I have been sticking to the Real Thing popped on the stove-top in a pot with a glass lid so I can see just how full the pan is. And I use olive oil, I am so decadent. You add your own salt, and I think you don't even need the butter, the olive oil is so tasty. We may speak again on Sunday.

I thought about about giving out my "secrect recipe" for popcorn, but I saw the t-shirt in the picture. Is that a Packers shirt

It's a jacket, and it's his wife's (mine). So you can give you recipe to B, as the Packer jacket is not his, but mine (since I was born in Milwaukee )

After reading this thread I ended up making fresh popcorn for myself and 4 others this afternoon...with a bit of butter of course. Thanks for the inspiration!

Me too... well, not make it, but I found some to microwave tonight.

We got this at Tengelmann tonight, I'm hoping gesüßt means salt, I know it couldn't mean butter because that would mean I was dreaming, but it'll probably be sugar (again) and be almost inedible. I'm not getting my hopes up.

munching on some ActII lightly salted right now.

Gesuesst means sweet... sorry for the bad news...

the micorwave sweet popcorn is not as bad as the popcorn at the theater, still kind of sweet, but makes me think of that pink elephant popcorn you had as a kid.

AHHHHhhhhhh!!! NO! It's the only brand I've found in town! *(#)@!@! Ok, Hauptbahnhof this weekend.

Thanks Renia, at least I know before I stink up my apartment with this stuff..

I'm sure someone has to like it, they seem to sell only that here... IMHO, my earlier rant a couple days ago about how there is way to much sweet stuff in Germany (including popcorn) and not enough salt is still on my mind.

I swear, I watched 3 shows on TV in the last 3 days (American TV), and they were eating popcorn in all 3! TORTURE.

I love the action shot of the popcorn popping though!

I went to Hauptbahnhof, just got home. I checked the Hertie, Hauptbahnhof. They had Orville Redenbacher's popcorn, in Sweet, Lightly Salted, and Honey Butter. I thought "this must be wrong" but checked the whole store, and could not find buttered popcorn. (Uhm, unless "Honey" means something in German other than the sweet stuff bees make, that's not regular American popcorn). I didn't see Act II brand of any flavor. I even went across the street to Rewe, and to a Tengelmann we walked past underground.

So, that makes Plus, Tengelmann (two locations), Lidl, WalMart, Rewe, and Hertie that do not have Butter Flavored Microwave Popcorn. And I'm STILL seeing it in almost ever American TV show I watch, which is just making me crazy! I'm going to have to stop watching American TV.

I noticed today also the lack of peanut butter in stores. Half an isle full of jelly, and no peanut butter. Do Germans just put sugar on everything, or do they just refuse to eat/buy things that are not sweet? Bavaria... Beer and Pastries... That's what you get. Good beer, good pastries... Nothing much else, except the occasional Italian restaurant, I think there are about 10 Italian restaurant here... incase someone needed extra carbs for some reason. I wonder if anyone here has ever tried the Atkins diet? How could you?

Okay, I know this is probably a really crazy idea, maybe a bit too radical for you Badlanz, I don't know. But you could melt some of your own butter in your microwave, then pop off some Lightly Salted popcorn and then pour the butter onto the popcorn. I know it might be a lot of effort to go to, compared to trekking all over town to find popcorn with a specific Butter flavour (but which probably contains very little actual butter), but it's a thought.

As for peanut butter, peanut butter is out there, just like the truth. But just like the truth, it's sometimes hard to see and find.

Why would there have to be peanut butter in Germany? (Or France, or Italy, or wherever?) If there's no demand for it - OK, you want it, and a few other people as well, but that hardly qualifies as overwhelming demand in economic terms - why would anyone have to flood the domestic market with the stuff? Btw, as Showem pointed out, it is actually possible to find it.