What is hand popped?

I was walking downtown this morning across the street from the Farmers Market which is not much like the farmers markets we knew in the Midwest but more like the Pricey Organic Boutique Market and this time of year, more than anything, a Flowers and Baked Goods market which also sells, today at least, in a big booth with red canvas sides, Hand Popped Kettle Corn.

Now, kettle corn is, I’m pretty sure, popcorn that is somehow kettley. That much I get. But what is hand popped, and how is it different from, say, foot popped or elbow popped? If you put kernels in your hands and squeeze them real hard do they pop? And how, pray tell, is that something you couldn’t also do with your feet? Or just by sitting, like a chicken hatches an egg? Still hungry?

I think we’re talking popcorn but a little more kettley and a little more farmery here, but I’m not absolutely certain about that and it wasn’t worth walking across the street to find out.