May 25 - June 1, 2000
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My friend Alan and I were sitting around drinking beers a while ago, and we got to thinking about our favorite foods for late-night dining. Cereal lust
Not just for breakfast anymore
by Kris Frieswick
Well, "dining" may be too refined a word. "Drunken food binging" might be a more appropriate description, I suppose. And it's actually more like early morning, if you want to get technical about it. So, anyway, we were sitting around reminiscing about early-morning drunken food-binging experiences of our youth and not-so-youth, trying to agree on the most satisfying food to eat under those conditions.
Alan's eyes got all misty, and he looked off into the distance. "You know when you've been out really, really late, doing too much of everything, the sun looks like it's starting to come up, and suddenly you find yourself in the cereal aisle of the all-night Stop & Shop, and you know you've got no business being there. And the next thing you know, you're sitting on the couch, watching infomercials, eating an entire box of Cap'n Crunch out of a mixing bowl. And then it's morning, and you wake up, and the roof of your mouth is just cut to shreds. I love that."
Not being a big cereal eater myself, I didn't realize that I had just had my first encounter with cereal lust. The cult of cereal lust, like most subcultures, remains largely hidden from view until the day you become aware of its presence. Then you start seeing it everywhere. Shortly after my conversation with Alan, cereal lust burst into my life with a snap, crackle, and pop. I began to encounter it at nearly every turn. I noticed that the guy I saw jogging every morning on the Esplanade always wore the same Kellogg's Rice Krispies T-shirt. My friend Shannon said a friend of hers in Aspen, Colorado, was thinking of opening a cereal bar that would stock every kind of cereal known to man, to open only from 11 p.m. till 8 a.m. to service the late-night cereal-lust crowd.Then I read about the resurrection of Quisp. Remember Quisp, the corn cereal with the funky little propeller-headed alien mascot? I thought it was long gone. According to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, however, Quisp is still around, but just barely. Quisp sold only 92,000 boxes last year, and is available in only five cities. But when Quaker Oats learned that Quisp fans were buying Quisp paraphernalia (such as a Quisp decoder ring) for hundreds of dollars, and that boxes of the rare cereal were selling for $10 on the cereal black market (and who knew there even was a cereal black market?), the company decided to make Quisp available on NetGrocer, an online grocery-shopping site. It proceeded to outsell Quaker's more popular brands.
There are books about cereal (Cerealizing America: The Unsweetened Story of American Breakfast Cereal [Faber and Faber, 1995], co-written with Bill Crawford by Cambridge resident Scott Bruce, who also has a cereal lovers' Web site); recipes featuring cereal (like one for a granola-based breakfast drink -- um, gag); and a network of collectors who trade cereal prizes. But these people aren't at the true center of cereal lust. For that you have to venture deep into the bowels of the Internet, to a site called Empty Bowl.
Empty Bowl is the place to go if you love your cereal more than would be considered reasonable or natural. The site is the brainchild (loosely speaking) of Joe Shea and his brother Steve, two Maryland boys in their early 20s who founded it last summer. The site features everything cereal: a Top 10 cereal list, an area that recommends mix-and-match cereal combinations, and my favorite: the "Point Counterpoint" cereal-debate area. One recent discussion revolved around the question of whether Count Chocula was goth.
"Point Counterpoint is a column where we've all started to go a little nuts," admitted Joe when I contacted him. "Petty arguments between the staff have escalated. Starting next month, though, we're going back to basics, with [a debate on] Raisin Bran: Kellogg's versus Post."
I see. This was weird on so many levels, I hardly even knew where to begin. I asked Joe, "Why cereal? Why not porno, where you could easily make money and retire as a millionaire before you hit 25?"
"The coverage of cereal in mainstream media and on the Internet is pathetic," said Joe indignantly. "We looked around on the Web before we started, and the only sites we could find were about cereal-prize collection. What the hell do I care about some baseball card that was on the back of a box of Sugar Smacks in 1957? I want to know how the Sugar Smacks taste! We like to think we serve a need in the cereal community."
And who knew there was a cereal community? Amazingly, Joe says his site is breaking even thanks to advertiser support, but he is not planning an IPO anytime soon. Although surely, should he decide to have one, the cereal community would rise up and support him with whatever investing dollars it has left after buying all that cereal.
Okay, so cereal is tasty and good, easy to prepare and healthful, and the mascots are entertaining, but what does this cereal lust really mean? I wanted to understand it. I needed Joe to make me feel what was driving him. So, using my finely honed interviewing techniques, I asked again, "Joe, why cereal?""We both grew up without much cereal exposure," said Joe. "Both our parents were drawn up into the health craze of the late '70s and were convinced that sugar was evil. It made me 'hyper' and Steve 'angry,' so they said. So we grew up watching the commercials for Count Chocula and Cookie Crisp on Saturday morning, but staring at a bowl of Fruit & Fibre
in our hands."Bingo. I finally understood. Cereal is the forbidden fruit. Or, in this case, the forbidden Froot Loops. I flashed back to my childhood, remembering all those times I stood in the cereal aisle at Market Basket, begging my mom for Frankenberry, only to watch her pull down another damn box of Cheerios. It was all clear now, and it made me sad. How many children have been forever warped in this way during their formative years, only to turn to the salve of cereal lust as a way to compensate for a lack of control over their childhood breakfast choices?
I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones. I made it to adulthood unshackled by cereal lust, an addiction that has clearly reached epidemic proportions. Those who have succumbed have been reduced to a bunch of cabin boys for the Cap'n. May he have mercy on their souls.
Kris Frieswick can be reached at krisf1@gte.net.
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