my all-time favorite cereal
My wife and daughter are away in Mexico and I've had three bowls of Cocoa Pebbles so far today. It's a fine cereal but it can't hold a candle to Rice Krinkles, a cereal that was discontinued sometime in my late teens, I think. Both are Post products, seemingly made from similar "molds," but Rice Krinkles lacked the cocoa and had an addictive aftertaste I've grown to suspect in the intervening years was malt. Rice Krinkles are not to be confused with Rice Krispies or Frosted Rice Krispies (or Cocoa Pebbles with Cocoa Krispies), its inferior Kellogg's counterparts. It's like comparing Yodels to Ho-Hos: Yodels win.
A couple years ago, I wrote the Vermont Country Store, asking their vaunted discontinued products division if they could track down a box of Rice Krinkles. Maybe they were being manufactured and distributed in far away places all these years--with the original recipe and racist iconography still intact. I never heard back.
What's your favorite childhood cereal?
What's your favorite discontinued food product?
What's your favorite discontinued childhood cereal?
posted by John Levenstein at
8:18 PM
25 Comments:
Great topic, John!
I was just talking about cereal with some friends the other day, and we were discussing the pain/pleasure aspect of Captain Crunch. A pleasure to taste, but man could those jagged little squares reek havoc on the roof of your mouth if you bit them the wrong way!
Top 5 favorite childhood cereals:
1. Cap'n Crunch
2. Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter
3. Post Alpha Bits
4. Post Sugar Crisp (I think they downplay the sugar aspect now by calling it Super Golden Crisp)
5. Cheerios
Favorite Discontinued Food Product:
1. Vienna Sausage - Okay, it's not officially discontinued, but it seems like it is, or at least should be. When was the last time you even saw that little can on a store shelf? A real relic of my 70's midwest upbringing. Amanda literally convulses when I tell her how I used to eat whole cans of these in one sitting as a kid.
**runner up: fried bologna sandwich. Again, not technically discontinued, but outside of my mom cooking it for me, I don't believe I ever met another kid who had this as part of his regular childhood caloric intake.
Favorite Discontinued Cereal:
The original Cookie Crisp (from Ralston Purina) - Literally they were little chocolate chip cookies you'd pile into a bowl of milk and inhale like crack. *Dog food jokes welcomed here please.
Chris, if you long for Vienna Sausages, come to Arkansas! They are prominently featured on the shelves of every freaking Walmart and supermarket you'll come across. Along with Beanie Weenies, another super popular food item here (basically just cans of Vienna Sausage slices in baked beans) - MMMM-MMMM GOOD.
As far as cereals are concerned, I'm with John; Rice Krinkles stand alone - the apex of anything ever created to shoot into your veins first thing in the morning. The only problem was that I would be so consumed with shoveling them into my mouth that I would find myself gasping for air after a minute or so having forgotten to breathe!!! Apple Jacks are pretty damn good too, and still available.
Another favorite breakfast: a huge glass of Nestle's Quick (chocolate flavor). I would dump so much into the glass that the spoon could practically stand straight up in the stuff!!!
Ken,
Welcome, I don't believe I've seen you post before. Where in Arkansas are you? I drove many a mile through that state when I lived in Dallas and would visit family back in the midwest. I always liked Texarkana. It was a welcome milestone letting me know Dallas was only a few hours away.
I forgot about Apple Jacks! I loved those things. And Froot Loops too.
No posts, just comments.
I'm currently located in Jonesboro, about an hour outside of Memphis. It's okay but I'm tired of being landlocked and am looking forward to getting out of here in the near future!
chris, ken's my older brother, he's been commenting here for a while. when we're both talking about a box of cereal, it was probably the same box. and i have to say, in retrospect, ken is starting to sound a little piggish with his portions.
I wasn't allowed to eat sugared cereals when I was a kid. But somehow from visits to friends I know that Sugar Frosted Flakes were excellent.
I also wasn't allowed to watch cartoons.
One of the horrific things about having children is you realize (if you stopped eating cereal when you grew up) that they have changed all the formulas. ALL the old tyme cereals taste different, and taste horrible. TRIX. YUX. CAP'N Crunch is gross. I can go on. I think they doubled the amount of high fructose corn syrup, took out the sugar, and other great ingredients like malt. (where's the malt? Oh, beloved malt.) Even whoppers don't taste right anymore. how can I find decent candy and cereal for my precious child?
For decent candy: www.valomilk.com.
i walked the picket line today with a man who won't eat anything inside anything else. he started out saying he didn't like peanut butter inside chocolate, but then confessed it was more global--he likes everything out in the open.
Bernie, you can still get Dr Pepper made with cane sugar instead of corn syrup. There's one bottler in Texas that makes it. We have it shipped to Perforce.
If you don't like Dr Pepper, this is of no help.
certain times of year, they have the kosher coke with cane sugar. there's also the one with sugar from mexico.
No Rice Krinkles remembrance is complete without acknowledging its former television commercials . I don't remember ever coming across a Rice Krinkle, but from its artwork the cereal looks very similar to Post's current "Golden Crisp" line. I wonder if they're the same, notwithstanding the sugar/high fructose corn syrup swap.
Since the original theme for discussion was favorite discontinued food product, I'll chime in with Sara Lee's Cheese Danishes. Sara Lee used to sell these in frozen six-packs sometime during the 80s, and the overweight, pre-teen version of myself would eat the entire package in one sitting. A great, 3,000-calorie way to start my day.
Hope its not gauche to jump into a comment despite not being a poster. I'm in a fantasy baseball league with John (a tenuous connection to this clique, I admit) and have enjoyed what I've been reading.
New Mike, there's no clique. The only people we all know in common are John and Bernie. The subheader "An Artistic Collective. Topanga Style" is a bit misleading. Only John and Bernie live in Topanga, as far as I know. And many of us aren't artists. "Collective"? Arguable. We do have "style" though, and I definitely don't want to argue the "An".
hi newmike, good to see you. i have no shame, just the other day i was begging for commenters like bush begging for oil. i can't wait for fantasy baseball. there's a void in the off season. i've told bernie i could live in a foreign country... during fantasy baseball season.
I don't think John could live in a foreign country.
What about Canada? England? Ireland? Scotland? New Zealand? My fantasy is that he could live in any of those, but you know him better...
i have certain basic necessities, i'd be fine. and to my wife, who thinks she can slip this in days after we've all left the thread, i say ha!
Maybe your cereal doesn't taste the same is because the mascots are
living the gansta lifetstyle in Brooklyn, NY.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bklyneli/sets/72157603777151219/
Yes!!!! Rice Krinkles were the best when I ate them in the fifties. I remember them as a shiny molasses coating over rice krispie type cereal. They were not puffed up like sugar smacks.
Stax were good too, I stacked 24 before my older brother went to the basement and under the kitchen he hit the ceiling witha baseball bat and down came the stack.
Back to Krinkles---couldn't Post come out with PC correct Krinkles?
Sitting here at work with a tear in my eye remembering the taste of my favorite cereal of all time RICE KRINKLES. As a kid my dad owned a grocery store and almost every day after school I would go to my dad's store and get a box of Krinkles and a quart of milk and go home and devour the whole box while I did my homework and watch afternoon cartoons. Mind you I am 53 years old so this was the late 60's to early 70's and I was soo thin and never put on weight. But the taste of Rice Krinkles were addictive and I just had to have another bowl of them. I guess they were like "crack" to a kid. I cried like a baby when they discontinued them. Post really needs to reissue the original formula for us Krinkle-heads but with a PC correct mascot so we "old schoolers" can take our pallets down memory lane once more.
Hi everyone I am 54 years young and boy do I remember Rice Krinkles they were greaaaat. Why if everyone enjoyed this so much did the company rip it off the shelf? We should get together and notify these people that there is a reciept in there files that needs to have the cob webs brushed off,and cooked up, and retryed out there in the real world. Give our kids and grandkids a chance to try something great.(where"s QUISP TOO???)
Another favorite for me was Choclate Cow Drink far superior to Yoo Hoo for those that enjoy that, your taste buds would come alive with that superior taste.This drink seems to be only a NY thing, maybe I am wrong?
Only the Good die young, and I guess that includes foods also, darn shame.
Wise up Post, something goods right under your nose and worth tring again, Nestle did it with Vanilla Drnk mix, missing for some 15 plus years and now back bigger and better than ever!!!!
Worth a shot if it does not click could be a tax write off 4 you. LOL
TRY it you'll like it!!!
Yeah, Rice Krinkles were great...loved that "So-Hi" character when I was a kid...Also liked Sugar Jets.
Most missed discontinued edibles -- Bonomo Turkish Taffy (bought out from the Bonomo family by Nestle in the 1980s, I believe, and discontinued), and CHUM GUM!!!! It went bye-bye long ago when the Curtiss Candy Company got eaten up.
Yeah, Rice Krinkles were great...loved that "So-Hi" character when I was a kid...Also liked Sugar Jets.
Most missed discontinued edibles -- Bonomo Turkish Taffy (bought out from the Bonomo family by Nestle in the 1980s, I believe, and discontinued), and CHUM GUM!!!! It went bye-bye long ago when the Curtiss Candy Company got eaten up.
Rice Krinkles and Crispy Kritters are the best sweetened cereals ever! Why are they gone? Only the super smart execs know for sure. At least General Mills went back to the original round shape of Trix. All those psychadelic looking flowers and other weird shapes they went to for a while several years ago made no sense at all! Lastly, anybody remember Kellogg's Concentrate? That stuff was sooooo good and it's gone too!
I, too, have very fond memories of Frosted Rice Krinkles. I also liked Freakies. I'm just glad my mother wasn't one of those caring mothers who wouldn't let their kids eat "sugar cereals".
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