Erik Eats Cereal: Cocoa Krispies

I'll freely admit, I loved Rice Krispies growing up.  I loved them as a cereal, I loved them as a sugary dessert in bar form, I loved to snack on them sometimes.  I was young enough that I had no idea what was causing all those little sounds in there, but eventually was able (without any outside help) to understand just what the cereal was made out of and how air pockets work.

So what happens when they take a winning formula and add chocolate?

Erik Eats Cereal: Lucky Charms

Faith 'n begorrah, this is probably the most offensive opening to a blog post I've ever done.

But it's okay, I'm technically Irish.

I completely lost my train of thought there for a moment.

Clarification time:  This isn't my first time experiencing Lucky Charms.  This was (and still is) the go-to cereal for my sister since she was little.  I would have some now and again, but being the older sibling I didn't want to just eat the same cereal as my sister, so I was constantly trying to find my own "official" cereal out of the options available to me.

Of course, when I was little, options for cereal included stuff like this:

But we'll come back to that at a later date.  For now, let's discuss funky marshmallow shapes.

Erik Eats Cereal: Frosted Flakes

I remember, when I was young, one of the cereals I could eat was Kellogg's Corn Flakes.  It was pretty decent, and I could add pretty much anything I wanted to it.  Sliced bananas were a regular feature, as were sliced nectarines.  I could have it with toast, with an omelet, with anything else I might want that morning, it was always "part of a complete breakfast."

So, what happens when you take corn flakes and add sugar?

Well, you get sweet corn flakes.

Erik Eats Cereal: Sweet Home Farm Maple Pecan Granola

Yes, I know, this isn't your typical cereal on the shelves.  However, I'm doing cereals, not just children's cereals.  Now, I know that granola gets a bad reputation.  It's boring.  It's bland.  It's jagged and/or mushy.

But I don't think that's fair.  Granola can be anything you want it to be.  You can add fruit, honey, nuts, different types of grains, berries, or any other type of ingredient you'd like to include.  I've made my own granola bars from scratch and tried any number of brands of granola bars, and many are both tasty and healthy.

So, what happens when you take pecans, one of the best nuts out there, and add delicious maple syrup?

Erik Eats Cereal: Golden Grahams

I vividly recall the commercials for Golden Grahams cereal.  "How do they cram all that graham?"

Erik Eats Cereal: Apple Jacks

Maybe I was just strange when I was growing up, but I liked to actually know what it was I was putting into my mouth when I was eating.  Frequently, when my parents would serve me a new dish, I'd ask, "what is it?"  Then, upon receiving a response like moussaka, tetrazini, or polenta, I'd then repeat my question, "okay, but what is it?"

I think that might be why I was always leery of Apple Jacks when I was young, because there seemed to be a genuine conflict between the packaging and the advertising.

For instance, let's turn to special guest Julia Stiles:

Okay, so Apple Jacks don't taste like apples, right?  That's fine, Froot Loops don't actually taste like "froot," so I can live with that.  So what do they taste like?

Erik Eats Cereal: Corn Pops

One of the ad campaigns I remember the most growing up was for the cereal Corn Pops.  It followed the same basic formula of- well, let's let The West Wing and Psych's Dule Hill explain it to us:

Something gets between young person and cereal, kid starts to suffer a full mental breakdown because apparently Corn Pops are laced with opiates and withdrawal is a horrible thing to see someone go through.  Situation winds up being resolved casually, and kid acts like it was no big deal.

Repeat that same formula for years with the same theme music from Jaws, and you've summarized every Kellogg's board meeting involving the cereal during that time period.

Some of them got a bit creepy, though.

I'm pretty sure that mother arrived seconds before he beat that little girl to death with a grapefruit.  Maybe it's the crazed look in his eye, maybe the way he just casually asks "Where's Mom?" while reaching for the largest blunt object on the counter, I don't know, it just feels like it was seconds away from being a Dateline episode.

I've had Corn Pops twice in the past few weeks, once just yesterday, and here's my summary of the flavor:

It tastes ridiculously sweet, with a faint popcorn like flavor buried underneath it all.

That's it.  I had to struggle to remember that much, because there really isn't anything innovative or unusual about the flavor.  It didn't offend me, it didn't astound me, it just felt completely safe and inoffensive.  That's not necessarily bad, and it might've worked when I was young, but for an adult palate I want something that interests me.  The taste of honey, or a touch of cocoa, those are flavors that are interesting.  Feeling like I just poured milk over popcorn doesn't really feel like breakfast to me, it feels like something I'd eat when I was broke and had to scrounge what food was left in the pantry and fridge.  Even then, I'd probably eat the popcorn and drink the milk.

Before anybody assumes that I just want to rag on every cereal I taste, I'll point out that I actually liked Cocoa Puffs, and there's one more coming up next week that I actually thought was really interesting.  This one just... it just doesn't stick with me or make me crave more.

Oh, and it seemed to get soggy ridiculously fast when I poured milk over it each time.  I'm guessing the cereal is 40% sugar, 20% corn, and 40% air.

So I guess if I had to rank it from one to ten, I'd give Corn Pops a five.  It's dead middle of the road, not strong either way.

Erik Eats Cereal: Trix (With Fruitalicious Swirls!)

First off, a bonus point to Trix for not trying to get away with something like "Frootalicious."

Minus one point because "Fruitalicious" is still a stupid word.

I'm almost sure that Trix came about because a random cocoa puff tried to mate with a froot loop, and this was the result.  It has the same lightness and shape of the cocoa puff, but the coloring is clearly from something that tries to get away with its own spelling.

Funny how two bird mascots would wind up producing a rabbit, though.

So let's get down to the review.

Erik Eats Cereal: Cocoa Puffs

The last time I wrote this article, I got to experience eating "Froot Loops" cereal for the first time.  Besides offending me on every possible level by their attempts to make "froot" a word that isn't supposed to make me think of something growing between a person's toes, it had an interesting touch of citrus buried under way too much sugar.

Now we're on to what I think must be the children's cereal opposite of "Froot Loops" in that it's balls, not rings, chocolate, not fruit, and grain is the first ingredient as opposed to sugar.  Plus, this bird mascot is much more insane than the calm, reasonable Toucan Sam.

It's Cocoa Puffs!

Erik Eats Cereal: Froot Loops

So apparently my having had limited exposure to bits of grain dipped in prodigious amounts of sugar is, as I believe the phrase was used, "a travesty."

As such, one of my early Christmas presents this year was a bag full of individual portions of a variety of cereals for me to try, consider, and eventually review.  I decided to try the first one today, and have since come to the conclusion that science has truly been able to create colors and flavors that one would never find in nature.

Let's begin with what I hope is the most colorful (otherwise I'd be struck blind) of the cereals, Kellogg's Froot Loops.