Globecord - Cereal Drama

In the first New Product review for quite some time, Johnny Superfecta tries a new cold cereal--a new version of a classic cold cereal, rather, designed for today's youth who demand constant over-stimulation, even at the breakfast table. So, was it SupaShreddies Mega Max? X-treme Weetabix Remix? Der Alpen Berry Blitzkrieg?

Two Scoops Crunch (C$1.99), from Kellogg's

In recent cereal news, Kellogg's Raisin Bran has rebranded itself as Two Scoops--but I don't need to tell you that. The name change isn't confusing; the concept of two heaping scoops of raisins has always been part and parcel of KRB, and the box is still purple. What is confusing is that Kellogg's has developed a New Product--Two Scoops Crunch--and packaged it in an almost-identical box. I reached for one at the grocery store, was taken aback and began to replace it, realized it was heavily discounted as part of a promotion, and had a bowl for breakfast the next day at 1pm. I generally prefer hot cereal as my opening meal, either oatmeal or Red River ("Red River's like death, all the old people say!" - Murray McLauchlan), but sometimes the oatmeal pot is full of yesterday's dinner leftovers, or one wants to be eating within sixty seconds of getting out of bed.

On a side note, here's another interesting thing the eggheads at Kellogg's have done--they've resurrected a classic KRB television commercial from the '80s ("Sturdy Danny McGee was up his 59th tree...") and simply edited it to show the new Two Scoops box--genius. This really ought to spark a trend; so many great commercials for existing products are languishing in the vaults, just waiting to be slightly freshened and reused at a negligible production cost. The most memorable thing about mediocre cereal Golden Grahams is the old TV spot which added new graham-cracker-cereal-related lyrics to The Turtles' #1 hit song "Happy Together."

Review

Anyway, as to the new cereal, I can report that it's dissimilar to Raisin Bran, but quite similar to Oatmeal Raisin Crisp, except even sweeter--much too sweet, in fact. I like some sugar in the morning--I sprinkle it on my oatmeal--but this was excessive. It turned the milk sickly-sweet, I was unhappy to discover as I grimly slurped up the remainder, a fact that reminded me of my days of eating heavily-sweetened children's cereals as a small boy. At least it didn't turn the milk a strange colour; I once threw up at school (due to an unrelated illness) after eating a red cereal (possibly FrankenBerry) for breakfast, and there was a minor panic that I was bleeding internally. It mirrored a scene in the novel Cujo.

When preparing my test bowl of Two Scoops Crunch I reluctantly used skim milk, as that's all there was at hand. I also added it to my tea, and in doing so made a startling discovery: skim milk is better in tea than all other kinds. I've never liked skim milk; it tastes thin and looks like cloudy water, but George Orwell wrote a column in 1946 for the London Evening Standard that laid out eleven points for making the perfect cup of tea, a copy of which I used to have on my wall, and point #9 is, "Use low-fat milk." I thought he meant "Don't use whole milk," but perhaps milk terminology was different in 1946 and "low-fat" was understood to mean "skim"--well, they probably didn't call whole milk "homo milk," at any rate. Point #1, "Always use Indian or Ceylonese Tea," is one I constantly violate because the cheaper blends use Kenyan and Indonesian leaves. Someday I hope to be fully in line with orthodox Ingsoc principles of tea brewing, but that day seems distant.

Verdict

So, Two Scoops Crunch is plusungood--it verges on being Goldsteinism in cereal form. Don't serve it to me, give it to someone else--give it to Julia. Skim milk in my Victory tea, however, is doubleplusgood; my lasting thanks go out to Big Brother for inventing the teabag, and for bringing us within measurable distance of the end of the war.