When I was a kid, if mom wanted to diet it meant one meal a day was replaced with either a glass of grapefruit juice or, more likely, a piece of lettuce with a scoop of cottage cheese on it and a slice of (canned) pineapple on top. There might be a maraschino cherry on top if we were at a restaurant.
Ah, the days before fad diets when word of mouth from friends was all it took to eat healthy. And for a kid, was there anything not to trust on TV commercials for “… this balanced breakfast”? If it was on a TV commercial it had to be true, right? And so it was with breakfast cereals.
On my radar
Growing up here in the South, when I was a very young child, my breakfast was a bowl of oatmeal and some buttered toast with a glass of milk. If lucky, I got a treat of Cream of Wheat or maybe Cream of Rice. I think Cream of Wheat was probably not that common here, but my grandparents had moved to Chicago from East Tennessee (near Athens) during the Depression for work and my mom was born there. She would listen to the radio in those days and she knew the Cream of Wheat song/jingle by heart, even singing it to me when I was young. She knew that and “You Are My Sunshine.” For whatever reason, Cream of Wheat was the treat. I would tear the toast up and put it in the bowl with the Cream of Wheat or Cream of Rice or oatmeal and mix it all up.
Another treat I got was a buttered piece of toast with sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on it. It was rare and delicious. And then, sometime before I was 10 years old, cereal came on my breakfast scene. It’s been on my radar ever since.
Old Man Winter dusting his snow flurries
The first cereal I remember was Corn Flakes. Since they were kind of bland, I was allowed to sprinkle them with a teaspoon of sugar, usually added after the milk was poured. I didn’t pour the cereal out of the box, and I didn’t pour the milk from the half gallon jug (a waxy, box-type container, before the plastic bottles we have now) but for some reason I was allowed to self-serve the sugar. I was only allowed one spoonful, but if you think it wasn’t a heaping spoonful you don’t know me very well.
I would tremor the spoon over the crunchy flakes, sprinkling the sweet crystals down on them like Old Man Winter dusts his snow flurries during a White Christmas. The difference in the Corn Flakes was that they went from “They’re cardboardy” to “They’re Grrreat!” I guess a lot of kids were doing the same at that time because Corn Flakes had been around since 1894, but Kellogg’s eventually got around to Frosted Flakes. Sugar Frosted Flakes as they were called until “Sugar” was dropped in 1983 were introduced in 1952, with Tony the Tiger as the mascot from the beginning. I don’t know why my family went with Corn Flakes and a spoon of sugar instead of skipping the middleman (me) and going with the Frosted Flakes, but that’s how it was.
Little shattering walls
The other biggie when I was a little kid was Rice Krispies. Rice Krispies, also from Kellogg’s, were invented in 1928, almost 100 years ago. The rice cereal which is made with a patented method has a couple of characteristics that were used in sales.
First is, they float. It was advertised that the cereal could float in milk up to two hours before sinking. I guess the point was if crunchy is why you liked them, then crunchy is what they would give you.
The other point of interest is that they make a noise when you pour milk on them. I had seen the advertisements on TV before I ever talked a grown-up into buying a box. Sure enough, I can remember as a kid listening closely to the cereal to hear the famous “Snap, Crackle, Pop!”
The reason they make the noise is because, well, they’re not 100% sure. Evidently nobody has funded a definitive study on why they “talk.” The best theory out there is that the rice krispy (singular) is cooked at a high temperature that bonds the starch of the rice together so that it has a lot of tiny compartments. When the milk is poured on, the pressure from the milk presses against the glass-like walls of the krispy and they break. So you’re hearing hundreds of little shattering walls.
And by the way, in other countries they say different things. In French it’s “Cric, Crac, Croc,” in Spanish it’s “Pim, Pam, Pum” and in Swedish it’s “Piff, Paff, Puff.”
“Snap” first appeared as a type of elf in 1933. By 1939, “Crackle” and “Pop” joined up, making the trio. “Snap” is now a chef, “Crackle” is like an elf with a pointed hat and “Pop” is dressed like a drum major for a marching band.
A variety pack of breakfast fun
The next revolution in my breakfast cereal youth was those few occasions, shopping at the Green Spot on Emery, when I could talk one of my parents into buying the multi-box collection of cereals. They cost more than just a single box of cereal, so it was a once in a while treat, but what a great idea. The small, single-serving-size boxes of the particular brand’s cereals gave a variety pack of breakfast fun. There was one for Kellogg’s and one for Post cereals. And it turns out there was a direct connection between Kellogg and Post!
Dr. John Kellogg, his brother Will and other members of his family worked at a health sanitarium in Battle Creek Michigan. John was an early believer in germs’ contribution to sickness, and also to the importance of having a healthy digestive system and good gut flora, ideas that were ahead of the time.
In a search for easily digestible foods, the big breakthrough came with their “invention” of Corn Flakes. This led to the line of Kellogg cereals we know now. The company came by way of the brother Will when he and John had a disagreement over whether to add sugar to the mix or not. (I side with Will who said “Yes!” to sugar.)
Meanwhile, one of their patients was C.W. Post, who, after regaining some of his health after a couple of stress-related breakdowns, also became interested in breakfast cereals. He started out with Postum, a coffee substitute, and then his cereal breakthrough was Grape Nuts. From that, his company grew.
Because of ongoing health issues, he committed suicide in 1914 at the age of 59. His daughter, Marjorie, took over the company and built it into a giant food empire. Kellogg cereals include Corn Flakes, Frosted Flakes, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, Cocoa Crispies, Fruit Loops, Raisin Bran and Rice Krispies among others. Post cereals include Honey Bunches of Oats, Honeycomb, Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Pebbles and Chips Ahoy cereal made after the cookie.
But back to small boxes of cereal, packaged together in a sampler pack of Saturday morning delight. I had a blast working my way through that grab-bag of cereals. And on some of them, you could actually use the box as a bowl by opening it up along a dotted line on the front.
There were always a few cereals in the mix I wasn’t too fond of and so the question was do I start with my favorite and work to my least favorite or go in the other direction and build to a big, satisfying finish on my last day of the cereal portmanteau.
There was nothing better than sitting in the floor in front of the TV on Saturday mornings watching one of three TV stations from Chattanooga as they played cartoons that had a mental nutrition that matched the dietary nutrition of what I was eating. In the sampler boxes you might get a Frosted Flakes but also a Product 19, or a Raisin Bran to play off a Corn Pops. For Post, you might get a Bran Flakes (without the raisins … kinda bland), Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles, and maybe Alpha Bits.
Monster cereals
The last hurrah of breakfast cereal greats came in 1971 from the third big cereal producer General Mills. These were the “Monster cereals.” Coming during the monster craze that started in the late ’50s and lasting until “Star Wars” came out and switched everything to science fiction, the original two, Frankenberry (strawberry) and Count Chocula were followed the next year by Boo Berry (blueberry) and eventually Fruit Brute (a werewolf) and Yummy Mummy. Still around at Halloween each year, the Monster cereals joined General Mills’ lineup of Lucky Charms, Wheaties and Trix. What a great time it was, eating a monster cereal while watching a monster movie. Move over popcorn, I’ve got a new snack to munch on while watching a frightening film.
And all of these cereals, we were promised, were part of this delicious, nutritious breakfast that consisted of the cereal, milk, orange juice, a slice of toast and maybe in the background some fruit. At some point they started spraying vitamins on the cereal so they could brag/market that as well. But for a truly satisfied customer, all it took was plenty of sugar and a cartoon.
Mark Hannah, a Dalton native, works in video and film production.