Barney! My Pebbles!

[Green Gibbon!]

The heyday of the cereal industry is long over. There's less new stuff, none of it's as creative as it once was nor is it now intended to be marketed for more than a few months. In the 90's we had Hidden Treasures, Sprinkle Spangles, and French Toast Crunch and now we get High School Musical (insipid red and orange corn stars) and Hannah Montana (same thing except red and purple). They're obviously not even trying anymore and who can blame them. When I was a kid, my mom wouldn't buy us cereal because it was "too expensive", not because it was "sugared poison."

Even the flagships have seen better days. Trix has lost its fruit shapes (when they reverted back to the original round puffs, it was advertised as a "new shape"!). Cookie Crisp is a shadow of its former self, now tasting little different from Cocoa Puffs. But at the end of the day, you know you can always rely on Pebbles. Flavor-wise, they're the best chocolate and fruit cereals on the market and always have been. I've never tasted a Pebbles cereal that was less than brilliant - Dino Pebbles, Marshmallow Pebbles, Cinna-Crunch Pebbles, and especially Berry Pebbles which by all rights should have become a mainstay.

But today I was shaken to my core.

I recently got a care package (read: cereal) from home, with a couple boxes of Cocoa Pebbles among the goods. I opened one up this evening and poured a bowl. I first noticed that the color of the flakes seemed lighter than usual. Pebbles are typically dark, they turn the milk chocolately in like two seconds. I took a bite and immediately noticed something was wrong. The classic taste was there, but it was... distant. I took another bite. No mistaking it. The cocoa content has been noticably reduced. Maybe even the sugar. It was not much different from eating a bowl of Cocoa Krispies (which they actually sell here and has always been vastly inferior to Cocoa Pebbles).


I have finally been betrayed by that which I held most sacred. There is no longer any truth in my universe.


This can't be true. I just got a bad box. Has anyone else experienced this with your most recent box of Pebbles? Please say no.

[Kogen]

Face it, breakfast is ruined.

[Green Gibbon!]

Who eats cereal for breakfast?

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Who eats chocolate bars?

[(No Imagination)]

I ...hate to hint at socio-political drama on this forum, but in this case, it needs to be pointed out that the world's cocoa supply is apparently running really low. By the way, two weeks ago my local cocoa mix suddenly went from 40% cocoa content down to 18% and now tastes like vanilla, probably for the same reason.

I'm buying cocoa powder and mixing it with sugar manually, for the moment...I can't honestly relate to all this as my preferred chocolate cereal has still been left intact due to its relatively high hazelnut content. Thanks for a reminder though - I think I'll buy my stuff in bulk at the next paycheck, just in case.

[G.Silver]

And to bring this thread back from global economics to a incredibly important Sonic-related topics, I recently found out that Scott Shaw, one of the first artists to work on the Archie Sonic comic, was writer, art director, and senior production artist for "over 100" Post cereal ads, particularly Flintstones' Pebbles cereal. Cocoa-lossal!

[Ritz]

You know, that makes a lot of sense!


This was in the 5th issue of that Knuckles series. It was also the best part and I promptly stopped reading because it was clear to me that Ken Penders' bullshit was just on the verge of blossoming. I mean, I was only in it for the Chaotix and I sure wasn't expecting them to be phased out with such haste and efficiency. Anyway, I wondered in passing whether it was drawn by an in-house artist or some Post freelancer. Mystery solved, I guess! I was using it as an avatar on Retro and I might as well do it here. Please bend me over and grab my Pebbles. Oh, size limit. That's why I never used it here.





Your letters have not been forgotten, Jared Matte.

[Crisis]

Since moving to a university town I've discovered a delicatessen which imports American foodstuffs including cereals. Any recommendations? Lucky Charms seems like a no-brainer but anything else I should look/ask for? My experience of cereals has been more or less limited to Cocoa Pops, Nesquik (which I always liked better than Cocoa Pops), Rice Krispies, Frosties, and of course Weetabix.

[Green Gibbon!]

Cap'n Crunch, preferably with Crunch Berries (though the plain version has its own appeal). Pebbles (maybe only Fruity Pebbles for the time being). Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs. Boo Berry if you can find it (even in the states it's only available seasonally). Golden Crisp or Honey Smacks. Froot Loops and Trix definitely have their own charm, even though Fruity Pebbles is my favorite fruit cereal.

Shit man, you should just try anything you can get. It's not like recommending games, cereal is one of those things a man has to discover for himself.

I ...hate to hint at socio-political drama on this forum, but in this case, it needs to be pointed out that the world's cocoa supply is apparently running really low. By the way, two weeks ago my local cocoa mix suddenly went from 40% cocoa content down to 18% and now tastes like vanilla, probably for the same reason.

Oh holy shit, what other cereals have been affected? Cocoa Puffs? Can I still be koo-koo for them? Does Count Chocula still have his bite? Shit, Cocoa Krispies chocolate content was already so low it'll now have to be marketed as Brown Sugar Krispies or something (actually that's an awesome idea).

Now on the bright side, this could mean that it's only a temporary situation, and at any rate, Fruity Pebbles seems to be unaffected by the chocolate famine.

[Farmer]

Since moving to a university town I've discovered a delicatessen which imports American foodstuff

Including the elusive Twinkie? And which town?

[Crisis]

Including the elusive Twinkie?

Not according to their website, but I'll take a look just in case.

[Crisis]

No twinkies I'm afraid. But they did have...



... ta-da!

They didn't have any boxes of the stuff on the shelf so I was stuck paying £1.95 for a single portion. Although the "single portion" advertised on the side of the pot is 49g (I have a photo on my Flickr account), while a "single portion" of Froot Loops advertised on my MASSIVE box of Fruit Loops is 29g. A little inconsistency there.


I just realised! It's a "pot"! Of "lucky charms"! Ho ho. How did this never catch on over here?

I identified the following shapes:

Grains: Jesus fish, multiplication/addition sign, tree/leaf/spade.
Marshmallows: rainbow, moon, shooting star, heart, clover hat, horsehoe…


... yellow thing? Is it a lock? An hourglass? I can't really tell.


First off I tried it dry. At this point I should mention that I hate marshmallow, so I was a bit apprehensive. Fortunately, it didn't even come close to being marshmallow-y.


If you look closely you can see I used up about 2/3 of my milk. This is not a portion size the light of heart, or, indeed, for light people in general.

Oh god, that was bad.

The cereal was pretty good! If I was to describe it in ways a Brit might understand, then I suggest you think of Cheerios but in funny shapes with lumps of colourful sugar. If anything, the cereal actually tasted a lot saltier than I expected, and it really needed the marshmallows to balance it out. The portion size was too big for me and left me feeling pretty stuffed - the pot says it's 200 calories without milk, which is actually quite a lot for a single portion of cereal.


Thumbs up! I have a mouth full of cereal, in case you're wondering.

But what would a bowl of cereal be without a refrigerated can of oriental ice tea?


I picked this up in the Student Union of all places. It was sitting all alone in the middle of the shelf, and when I first saw it I did a double take. I thought maybe it was a prank, but no, underneath it was a price tag for "milk tea drink" and next to it was an empty section labelled "canned coffee", so I guess not only is this a thing, but it's a thing popular enough to sell out by 4 PM.

We don't really drink iced tea in England. It's around, but we all pretty much prefer it hot. It's exactly the sort of vulgar idea that a foreigner would suggest as an "improvement". Not that I'm judgemental or anything. Hey, I gave it a shot!

If anyone could translate the name, that'd be swell. The english on the front just says "Silky Smooth" while the description is simply "MILK TEA BEVERAGE", which is a bit of a tautology given that both tea and milk are beverages.


As you can see, I'm not convinced.

It was pretty awful. It did taste like tea, I'll grant it that, but it also tasted metallic, possibly on account of being encased in metal. It's also black tea, which is pretty strong, and the milk taste was unpleasant and seemed highly processed, like condensed milk - the ingredients call it "full cream evaporated milk", whatever the fuck that means.


It was actually so bad I could only drink half of it. You can see that it legitimately looks like iced tea with milk, at least. It's made by the Coca-Cola company so I was surprised to see that it was actually pretty low calorie, and probably a better way to get your caffeine kick than good ol' regular coke. Then again, if they had stuffed it full of sugar, it might have actually been drinkable.

[G.Silver]

Up next, cereal "unboxing" video. It's YouTube gold!

[Crisis]

Apologies if the scrapbook approach was a little much. But, you know, since it's a thread about grown men getting excited about cereal, I thought I would have some fun with it.

[Green Gibbon!]

I was very moved by it! It's sobering to think that there are people in other countries who don't even get their first taste of Lucky Charms until they're in college. I couldn't even imagine.

[G.Silver]

It was fun! But I do think you could get a video out of it, and I already think those technology unboxing videos are completely ridiculous so a cereal-based parody would be right up my alley.

[Neo]

Apologies if the scrapbook approach was a little much. But, you know, since it's a thread about grown men getting excited about cereal, I thought I would have some fun with it.

GG! would have done it ages ago if not for his lack of self-confidence.

I was very moved by it! It's sobering to think that there are people in other countries who don't even get their first taste of Lucky Charms until they're in college. I couldn't even imagine.

I have never tried Lucky Charms. General Mills just doesn't exist over here, though we get some of their cereal via third parties, so I've eaten Golden Grahams and some others. Likewise I'd never heard of Pebbles cereal before this topic.

[gr4yJ4Y]

The people on this thread are really good at documenting food eating. I'm probably the last person to watch something on The Food Channel or the like for more than a few minutes, so consider it a success that you were able to suck me in with your commentary on a cereal I've had a million times before (and yet as I sit here on a full stomach from dinner, I crave it yet again). I never thought of describing the taste of the grain bits as being "salty", but I know exactly what you're talking about.

You really reminded me of when I was in preschool and preferred to eat my Lucky Charms without milk. I think I tried to get away with just eating the marsh mellow pieces more than once, which my mom was none too happy about.

Both my Japanese and Mandarin are pretty poor at this point (after too many years of neglecting my studies), but I do recognize the last symbol on the label as being 茶 or tea. You confused me for a second with that last shot being mirrored.

[Crisis]

You really reminded me of when I was in preschool and preferred to eat my Lucky Charms without milk.

Yes! This should be made a socially acceptable way to eat cereal. I still grab a handful of Nesquik to eat dry sometimes. And sorry about the mirroring thing, that's just a quirk of my camera. I tried to correct it in all the pictures but it looks like one got through.

As a side note, this was my lunch today:



The soup is a lobster flavoured ramen I picked up from the delicatessen, for 45p. The "sashimi salmon and prawn" was, as I'm sure you've figured out, a selection of raw fish and vegetables served on or in rice. I picked it up at the tuck shop underneath the Psychology department at an extortionate price.

I've never had lobster, but the soup didn't taste like anything to me, except salt. It wasn't exactly unpleasant, but pretty bad by ramen standards. The ingredients, unsurprisingly, contain no lobster. The cooking instructions suggest eating the noodles raw, as "a crispy snack for all time". I tried it, but couldn't give it such a high recommendation. I'll be sticking with Demae Ramen for now (my favourite flavour is beef).

Sashimi is another food I've only tried since moving out, as there were no Japanese restaurants back home and the rest of my family can't stand fish. This selection was pretty good - there were some mellow sushi rolls with peppers to give some crunch and flavour, and some rolls with wasabi but avacado as well to balance it out. Tesco sells cooked fish sushi rolls which aren't actually that bad and half the price of these ones, which makes it hard to justify buying them. It's nice to know they're there, I guess.

When I tried Japanese food at a restaurant, the best part was dessert. My personal favourite is sesame ice cream, which I got kind of on a whim without really expecting much. It's grey and I endured emo jokes for the rest of the evening, but holy shit, I never wanted it to end. It had a very deep, very nutty flavour reminiscent of peanuts, although it was better than any nut-related ice cream I've tried. Tempura ice cream was also fantastic; it's like a doughnut filled with ice cream. I'm not sure I could eat an entire serving, though. I wish I could find this stuff somewhere affordable.

Anyway. Can you guess why I'm so excited?



That is not a flattering picture. But god damn, it smells like fruit!! There is nothing I can think of in British cereal that even compares to this, although I'm probably overlooking something obvious.

These are Froot Loops with Sprinkles, by the way. They were the only option on the shelf and I figured it wouldn't make a significant difference. Was I being naive?







I ran a census on my first ever bowl of froot loops. The results:
22
21
14
16
15
3

Then I tried to decipher the genome of the froots by tasting them one by one. In descending order of confidence:

Green: Lime.
Orange: Orange. What else could it be?
Yellow: Tasted like a less acidic version of green. All signs point to lemon.
Blue: Although I've never actually tried it, there is only one blue fruit, and that is blueberry.
Red: It tasted tarter than I was expecting, which suggests it was raspberry. But I'm still going for strawberry.
Purple: The main ingredient of purple drank, cough syrup? I have no idea, this is the one that tasted the most like pure sugar. Grape?

I've never had such a colourful cereal. On the one hand, it brought out my inner manchild, but then again I can see why it never made it big in the UK. Opening it up to the scent of fruit was a real rush, which I'm surprised they haven't at least tried to recreate over here, but we are a nation of Weetabix lovers so maybe it just didn't catch on. While eating it, the flavours lost their distinctiveness and just sort of melded into "sugar", but I think the overall breakfast experience makes up for it, which is officially the dorkiest thing I've ever said.

-----

I'm heading home for the weekend and I have a giant fuck-off box of loops to eat, so I guess this is the end of my cereal adventures, at least for now. But I still have Cap'n Crunch (regular and Berry versions) and Reece's Puffs to try, so there's youtube material left over if I feel so inclined. Also, the shop's website stock has changed since I last checked it, so it seems that they rotate cereals. I hope so!

[Segaholic2]

I've never even heard of Froot Loops with Sprinkles.

[gr4yJ4Y]

It looks like just regular Froot Loops by the pictures.

[Green Gibbon!]

I'm kind of curious to know how many sushi/sashimi eaters we've got here.

I'll eat it if I'm hungry and it's put in front of me, but I'm never like, "Man, I sure could go for sushi tonight." The first time people here see you eating it they're all like, "Oh, you can eat sushi?" Well of course I can eat it - I'd prefer a cheeseburger, but y'know, whatever.

I always find that the texture is the most difficult thing to get past. Also, I won't touch tuna (but I won't touch that crap even when it's cooked).


A couple months ago I ate at a restaurant that had horsemeat sashimi on the menu. I did have to draw the line at that.

[CM August]

I ate sushi when I visited a sushi bar in Japan. That's about it.

The ones I was game enough to try were alright.

[Crisis]

I can't eat too much raw fish or I start to feel sick. It's definitely the texture. I quite like tuna sashimi, but then again I prefer it cooked (tuna is in my eyes the only acceptable context for mayonnaise). I do occasionally get a craving to eat sashimi, but the urge is interchangeable with all my other fish-related cravings and could be resolved equally by cooked fish sushi, or fish and chips, or even fish fingers (fish sticks to you yanks).

Edible horse is supposed to be a big deal in France. I can't say I'm not curious.

[Crowbar]

I've actually had horse meat (cooked) before. It was really unremarkable, kind of bland and the texture wasn't up to much. It was only the once, though, I've no idea if it's always like that.

I've always been a little mystified by the way some people react to the whole raw fish thing (by that I mean those who refuse to even try it once, if you've had it and didn't like it that's obviously reasonable). It's not like so many people would eat it if it weren't safe. Personally I've always enjoyed it, never had a problem with the texture at all, but the stuff I've had probably wasn't that great, as it's from chain restaurants in London.

@ Crisis, your view on tuna is amusing to me because I sort of feel that mayonnaise is the only acceptable context for tuna.