What happens when you eat nine cereals, ranging from 7 to 23 years old, besides cramping? Find out!
Food
It’s a weird crossroad when bigger restaurants and food companies start latching onto some of the left-of-center food trends. Putting bacon on unexpected things isn’t a new concept, by any means, but it’s still a big “huh?” moment for a lot of people.
If you have watched a few episodes of Unwrapped, or some of those Travel Channel “Top 10 Places to Get Really Fat” specials, you are already familiar with Voodoo Doughnut’s Maple Bacon Bar. That is only one of countless products that has blended the salty and fatty greatness of bacon with an unexpected (and almost always sweet) partner.
I even reviewed one of these two years ago, and since my laziness rarely puts anything I review in “breaking news” territory, you know the bacon craze had reached a sense of marginal acceptance by the average person.
Niche doughnuts and chocolate bars are one thing. When chain restaurants start serving strange bacon products, that’s when “putting bacon in or on anything” has become almost standard practice.
I have absolutely no idea how widespread the Village Inn chain is. I looked online for a few minutes, and figured, “That’s enough effort – I guess I’ll never know.” For those not familiar, Village Inn is similar to Denny’s or IHOP, minus the inherent sadness of those places. Maybe it’s closer to Perkins, since both are famous for their pies.
Village Inn is one of those glorious restaurants where meal rules don’t apply. My usual meal there usually consists of some sort of crepe or French toast, covered in sweetened cream cheese and strawberries in strawberry syrup. This kind of “meal” would be frightening to have for dessert. But have it at a “breakfast all day” restaurant, and somehow logic gets deformed and this becomes an acceptable dinner.
Besides eating a plate covered in starch and sugar, as I mentioned before Village Inn is best known for their pies. Most of their pies are awesome, though a lot of the fruit pies fall victim to that “five inches of empty space between the top and bottom crusts, while the fruit filling just pours out onto the plate” syndrome.
Their most recent creation is their entry into the land of food perversion by way of bacon. They call it the “Salty Hog Pie”.
I had minor doubts about the pie, because besides the piece of bacon on top, it seemed like an otherwise straight forward recipe. Granted, a “straight forward recipe” that had about seven layers of stuff, but none of those layers had any bacon-ness.
A quick attempt to break down the pie, from top to bottom:
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Candied bacon
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Roasted almonds and caramel
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Whipped cream
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French Silk (which to me is a fancy term for “sort of a cross between pudding and frosting”)
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Chocolate cake
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Salted caramel and roasted almonds
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Pie crust (that part you probably figured out)
Immediately, I went for the piece of bacon on top. The bacon was candied, and was incredible. I’m sure it’s a fairly easy process, so I have to figure out how to do this at home. If it’s not an easy process, I will give up. After all, that’s the American way!
Put on your 3D glasses!
After the bacon was devoured, it was on to the pie itself. The first few bites were really good. Unfortunately, it soon turned into one of those situations where it is so rich, and all a very similar texture, where the sweetness and richness because a bit overwhelming.
The pie is really good, to be sure. However the monotonous texture made the second half of the slice a far less pleasant experience. What would have greatly improved the pie would be if there were little bits of the candied bacon, mixed into one of the other layers. Also, upping the saltiness of the “salted” caramel would have made for a nice flavor contrast. More almonds would have helped the texture to be something other than “sugary mush”.
Overall, the Salty Hog Pie is really good, despite what sounds like some major complaints. It’s unfortunate, because a few small tweaks would have made the pie absolutely incredible. Instead, it is just a good pie with a bacon-related novelty they didn’t fully embrace. Oddly enough, the fact that there wasn’t enough bacon held it back.
Seriously though, I need to go look up how to make candied bacon. I want about four pounds of it. For a snack.
A disturbing trend in the sugar world has been the encroachment of Easter candy into the Halloween world. I wouldn’t have as much of an issue with it, if they weren’t trying to sneak in the bad Easter candy. If we were getting spooky Robin Eggs, I’d probably be on board. Unfortunately, we get things like pumpkin-shaped Peeps and Halloween Creme Eggs.
It might come as something of a shock, but I really don’t like Cadbury Creme Eggs. Considering the fact that it is a chocolate shell encasing what is literally liquid sugar, it seems like it would be right up my alley. But the chocolate shell is mediocre, and the “creme” is horrifying. It’s like a sweetened version of various bodily fluids mixed together.
Not content to just be annoying at Easter time, Cadbury has introduced the Screme Egg. And I’m well aware that I’m using a very loose definition of “introduced”. I’m using the definition that means “I finally got around to it.”
So, basically, it has been Halloweenified by making the yolk green, and putting a witch hat on the bunny. Yes, many candies are sold on Halloween with far less re-theming. But the Creme Egg has such a strong connection to Easter, that it needs to be more jarring of a re-theme to feel like something that should exist for Halloween.
Make all the creme green, rather than the yolk. And make the yolk a different color. Maybe a green egg with a blood red yolk. Wait no, green and red is Christmas. They could have made the white part green, and kept the yolk as that orange-y color, maybe just amp up the orange-y-ness. Sorry, this review is rapidly going downhill in terms of using made up words.
The “Fear Not! It’s the same great taste” claim just reinforces the idea that this isn’t ready to be a big Halloween candy player. We know that this is an obvious color palette swap. This is just the Reptile to the Easter version’s Scorpion. But something about the fact that they couldn’t give the customer any credit to figure this out, and they had to spell it out for us – it’s a slap in the face. How dare they underestimate our candy-buying prowess.
Besides the whole “Go away, come back at Easter” aspect, I just don’t get when this would really be applied. Not many people are going to give this out to trick or treaters. The Creme Egg works because it goes in an Easter basket, with the other… that’s right – eggs. Sure, you’ll have people buying it to shamefully eat then and there, but the majority of them are going in baskets.
As a candy-containing vessel, Easter basket to Halloween pumpkin doesn’t translate well, because most Halloween candy is given out in small and inexpensive pieces. The Screme Egg is too pricey to be given away. Plus, if you put this in a kid’s pumpkin, it would get crushed by the other candy, and you would have the creme slop spilling everywhere. If you see a Screme Egg display, look in it – there will be at least a few crushed ones, and half the eggs will have slimy liquid sugar oozing out of the wrapper. Now imagine this structural disaster in a kid’s pumpkin, ruining all of the superior, Halloween-ier candy. It would be a travesty of epic proportions.
And if someone is unfortunate to get this, this is what they will be “treated” to:
Yum, a chocolate-covered head cold!
I apologize, since I do realize that lots of people inexplicably love Creme Eggs. And I am fine with them at Easter. Just keep this crap away from Halloween.
I don’t have any sort of clever introduction for this review. Well, I don’t think I’ve ever actually had a clever introduction to any review. I just mean that I don’t feel like putting much effort into this.
Which is probably getting this started on the wrong foot, I do realize. What I mean is that this cereal is a dull shape, and revolves around a theme I don’t care about at all. Aren’t you excited to read on?
Kellogg’s Vrooms cereal is a car racing-themed cereal, and to prove how authentic it is the boxes have cars and people who apparently are famous for driving them. I apologize. I know that description sounds obnoxious – I just have no interest in car racing. I’m sure I’d get excited about an NHL cereal, and someone else would write about it talking about their hockey bats.
There were a few choices for people on the box, and I went with this guy:
There were a couple major factors in deciding to go with him. He had the coolest name of the bunch – Dario Franchitti. His name also goes perfectly with the other reason I chose him. He has that strong Italian look, where I could easily picture him driving around the track, yelling like Wario. The fact that his name is so similar is just a glorious coincidence. But picturing him yelling, “I’m-a Dario, I’m-a gonna win!” made him my favorite box cover star.
Also, that car is cooler than the other cars they had.
There’s not too much fun to be had on the box itself. There’s a fleeting moment of excitement when you think there’s a green shell in the driver’s seat, but then you realize it’s just a helmet.
On the back of the box there’s a word search, and Dario tells the story about he became interested in a-winning. It fails to mention whether or not he can make the jump in Rainbow Road.
And for those of you who are still doubting his Wario Ways, ahem:
The cereal itself isn’t very interesting. At first glance, it looks like USA Cheerios without the blue. Upon closer inspection, the shape of the O’s look different than normal Cheerios. This is, of course, also ignoring the fact that Kellogg’s doesn’t even make Cheerios. They are a little flatter on the inside, almost like an actual tire shape. Unless I’m giving them too much credit, and imagining things. But if this was on purpose, well done.
The flavor of the cereal is a surprising, new taste experience. It’s hard to describe the actual flavor, because it’s a well-blended mixture of various fruits, spices, and…
Wait, no. It’s just Frosted Cheerios.
Which is fine, I really like Frosted Cheerios. Except the little tire-shaped O’s (I’m just going under the assumption they are tires at this point) don’t have the same mouth feel as Cheerios. They’re smaller, and the shape doesn’t lend to the same good bite as a normal Cheerio. Nevertheless, it’s an overall positive cereal experience.
I don’t know how much longer Vrooms would be available, they’re limited edition, after all. Scroll up – it says so on the front of the box. But if you happen to see it at Target, it’s worth picking up a box. I know that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, but I’m surprised enough that I wrote this much about a car racing-related product.
I’ll start this off by giving fair warning: the “New” in the “New Cereal Roundup” title is inaccurate. “Inaccurate” being a polite way of saying “a lie”. I’m well aware that at least one of these two cereals isn’t new. I wasn’t sure whether to start with that one, and get the controversy out of the way, or end with it, so at least this article starts with some newness. The date in the next sentence will probably give away which order I chose.
General Mills’ web site claims that Chocolate Lucky Charms was introduced in 2005. They have no reason to not tell the truth, but I am still going to go ahead and wildly accuse them of lying. This accusation is based solely on the assumption that if Chocolate Lucky Charms existed for that long, I would have heard of it. My cereal modesty knows no bounds.
Although it’s possible that “introduced” is one of those situations where they tested it out in three Piggly Wigglys to see how it went. Or it’s just possible that I’ve been wrong about this whole thing.
Regardless of when it was introduced, I only saw it recently. At first, it seemed like an unnecessary chocolatizing of a cereal that didn’t need it, like Cocoa Frosted Flakes. But then I did the math: chocolate pieced cereal + marshmallows = Count Chocula. I was in.
Based on the box, Chocolate Lucky Charms is clearly hoping the “Lucky Charms plus chocolate” aspect will be enough to entice kids’ attention. And, well, they’re right. That’s a fabulous sugar combination. And they should be grateful that is enough to gain attention, because the box rapidly goes downhill once you turn it around.
I am familiar enough with Box Tops For Education. And by “familiar enough” I mean, “My wife is a teacher so I give them to her, and have zero idea of what happens after that.” But it seems peculiar that on a box that’s geared clearly towards children (and myself), that they wouldn’t even put a token activity page on the back.
First of all, it’s an alarmingly dull topic to read when you have nothing else to do while eating cereal. Secondly, it just seems like you would want to keep the word “education” as far away as possible from a box of sugary cereal.
But like people who are less superficial than myself say, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.”
Opening the box (and bag, obviously, otherwise this review wouldn’t get very far), I am greeted with that familiar “chocolate in quotation marks, and that chocolate is so barely chocolate-y that you still have to say ‘in quotation marks’ even though the description is already in quotation marks” smell.
Someone who knows more about foreign sounding ingredients like “Trisodium Phosphate” and “corn” might be able to explain this, but I’ve never understood why some chocolate cereals just can’t get the chocolate flavor correct. Cocoa Pebbles, Cocoa Krispies, and Chocolate Cheerios know what “chocolate” tastes like. Then you have cereals like Cocoa Puffs, Count Chocola, and, apparently, Chocolate Lucky Charms, whose chocolate flavor is just slightly off.
Slightly off isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just not where it should be. Some cereals can pull off the odd chocolate flavor, like Count Chocola, and some can’t, like Cocoa Puffs.
I was a bit worried that the marshmallows would be chocolate as well, and make the cereal one note. I guess “worried” isn’t the best term, since I knew the marshmallows wouldn’t be chocolate about one tenth of a second after seeing the box and noticing the non-chocolate marshmallows. But “worried” adds a sense of drama to the proceedings, so we’ll stick with that.
The cereal itself tastes almost exactly like Count Chocula – similar levels of sweetness, similar “””””chocolate””””” flavor, similar “sugar and chocolate had a cereal baby and here it is” eating experience.
The only difference is the cereal pieces are slightly smaller, and not as puffy in both size and texture. That difference is fine with me, as the cereal is still really good, and that way come Monster Cereal season, I can have two nearly identical yet different cereals on my shelf, and not have it seem redundant.
As for the milk, it does an admirable job. It comes nowhere close to the top echelon of cereals that leaves you with essentially Chocolate Quik in the bowl, but far exceeds the stingy chocolate milk cereals like Krave.
I would highly recommend trying a box of Chocolate Lucky Charms. Unless you’ve been buying it since 2005, in which case I guess just continue doing what you’ve already been doing.
[insert seal of approval here]
The other cereal, and this one actually is pretty new, is a new line attempt from Post. I didn’t, however, buy the entire line to try, because there were like 6 different varieties. If this one passes the test, I may inform of the others
Before diving into this Post effort, I should give some recent background on a Post cereal.
About a year or so ago, I saw a box of “Mini Cinnamon Churros” cereal. I was very excited for these, since it combined two of the greatest foods in existence. Unfortunately, the cereal turned out to be quite average. That was about where it ended for my interest in reviewing them. They are certainly okay, but nothing worth getting too worked up over. Plus, I’m not sure the shape is the best idea. I know it’s supposed to look like sliced up churro pieces, but instead they sort of look like… anuses.
Even though I didn’t find the cereal to be a rousing success, I still give Post credit for trying a fun cereal idea. I’m sure a lot of people like the idea, and the cereal itself; it was just “meh” for me.
So that was my recent Post “new cereal” history coming into Post’s new effort: its Good Morenings line.
The Good Morenings cereal line is off to a rough start, due to its atrocious name. While it’s not the same joke, making a pun similar to Alkaline Trio’s “Good Mourning” isn’t the most positive way to start your day, unless you are a mortician.
The other issue with the line is – what is its purpose? The box’s message is this amalgamation of “value”, “healthy”, and “positive affirmations”.
Of all its mixed efforts, the direction the box seems to scream most is “value”. But it doesn’t say value in a good way, like when the top 1/5 of a box is red and says “20% More Free!” Instead, the box just indicates its value in a rather sad way. The first thing I thought of after glancing at the box was The Onion’s “Poor-O’s”, the cereal that “stays crunchy in water.”
The main reason the value aspect appears sad is that the box design looks overwhelmingly like store brand packaging. Similar to Tropicana’s disastrous redesign a few years back, the Good Morenings box looks like it is cheaper than it actually is.
The biggest issue with their value proposition is the claim of “21 Bowls of Cereal!” I’m fine when cereal companies refer to “servings”. Yes, fine one serving is 3/4 of a cup, despite the fact that no one ever eats that paltry amount. And I’m not even talking about my idea of a bowl of cereal, which tends to be a mixing bowl. Even normal people eat much larger servings than an actual “serving”. So trying to claim that these “servings” are equivalent to a bowl of cereal – heresy!
The back of the box doesn’t bring much relief. You could play suduko, which is a strange step up from the typical maze. Or you could complete some of the suggested activities, such as: enjoying more giggling, gentle stretching, or promising to say one nice thing today!
Despite the packaging’s depressing tone, I still decided to pick up a box of the “Cocoa Cinnamon Crunch” cereal, since that flavor was far and away the most interesting sounding of the line.
For all of its touting of nutrition, the Good Morenings line seemed to have gone with the cereal compromise of “It’s not as bad for you as other cereals!” theory. Similar to the Reduced Sugar Frosted Flakes / Trix / etc, where the nutritional ground it lands in wouldn’t exactly place it in that weird area of the cereal aisle with Kashi and that Clifford cereal. It lowers the sugar, but the overall nutritional scope just winds up in this purgatory area.
The cereal itself is very similar to Churros in size and shape, although the texture seems to be a little crunchier. The taste is… odd. It has chocolate flavor and it has cinnamon flavor, but something seems off about the whole flavor proceedings. This might explain why I never got into poetry as a profession, but I just can’t seem to put into words why it’s not very good. To be clear – it’s not bad, just not good.
As for the milk – on the plus side, it leaves some cinnamon-y residue like the Churros cereal and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but none of the chocolate seeps into the milk.
I’m reconsidering Post’s “21 bowls” claim, because the cereal pieces are monstrous. Post sure seems to love gigantic cereal pieces – this, Churros, Honeycomb, even Waffle Crisp. I guess they had to overcompensate once they realized an entire box of Grape Nuts only filled one bowl. But having gigantic cereal pieces in an attempt to fill a bowl more easily is cheating, so I rescind any of my reconsideration.
[no seal of approval]
I can safely say I wouldn’t get Cocoa Cinnamon Crunch again. I would, however, probably try some of the others since they sound good as well. No, I don’t have a very good sense of pattern recognition, why do you ask? The Waffle Crisp seems worth a try since my issue with the original Waffle Crisp is that its overwhelming sweetness moved it into “gross” territory. So a reduced sweetness on that could help it greatly. The Frosted Flakes and Strawberry and Créme could be good, as well. And despite its claim as a value cereal, you can tell Strawberry and Créme is fancy because they spell cream differently and it has that thing over the “e” that I had to hit ALT+0233 just to type.
Berry Loops and Vanilla O’s sound like a pass, because… well, because they do. I’m done explaining myself!
Licensed cereals have been around since the dawn of time. Don’t bother confirming that – it’s true. However, they really became popular in February of 1982, give or take a few months / years.
When starting this article, I had been thinking that C-3PO’s started the licensed cereal trend. But when fact checking when C-3PO’s came out (don’t get used to the fact checking, by the way), it turns out they weren’t made until 1984. This is how hot the Star Wars trend still was – they could get away with one of the most boring licensed cereals ever. They were just Alpha-Bits shaped like, the number eight, I think? What was that shape intended to be?
This is actually the first time I’ve ever thought about it, and am starting to think maybe the shape was meant to be a C-3 smushed together. In which case… that’s stupid. It would be one thing if his (its) nickname was C-3, but it wasn’t. They were just too lazy to figure out how to make a machine that could produce cereal pieces shaped like “Threepio”.
After finding out C-3PO’s cereal wasn’t made until 1984, I tried thinking of others that could have come earlier. My best guess (I had long since stopped fact checking, by the way – I warned you) was E.T. Cereal. E.T. Cereal, by the way, sounded awesome; but I don’t recall ever eating it. But chocolate and peanut butter pieces is a pretty legitimate flavor combo; the fact that they couldn’t truly tie it into Reese’s Pieces was a shame.
Then I realized I actually have no idea when E.T. the movie came out, let alone the cereal. It was around this point that I realized that my knowledge that something came out “in the 80’s” wasn’t going to be precise enough. So I basically gave up on the history of licensed cereals. Besides, it’s been done plenty of times by people who probably, you know, did some research. Or at least looked on the internet for pictures.
Wait, Gremlins! I know there was a Gremlins cereal. Didn’t that movie come out before 1984? I apologize, the first half of that decade really blends together for me. In fairness, I think my excuse of “being five years old” is pretty legitimate.
Point (barely) being, licensed cereals, more often than not, are awesome. Sure, there have been plenty of misses. The worst, of course, being Morning Funnies. The concept wasn’t bad – a cereal based around characters from comic strips, where the back of the box actually opens up to reveal more comic strips. The problem was, the characters were terrible. Family Circus, Luann, Marvin (who?)… I would continue, but leading off with “Family Circus” is more that enough evidence. Making matters worse was that the cereal itself was awful. The pieces looked like Giggles cookies, except in neon colors. They tasted like Froot Loops if you removed the artificial fruit / froot flavors, and only left the flavor of “sugar”.
The occasional swing and a miss aside, licensed cereals have had a long history of successful attempts. The greatest licensed cereal ever being Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cereal. This cereal had everything going for it. Ralston (of course it was made by Ralston) could have rested on the TMNT laurels. TMNT could do no wrong at the time, even food wise. Lest we forget the glory days that were when you could just go into a deli and by a Turtle Pie.
But no, they weren’t going to make a generic cereal. Well, I mean they sort of did, but it was at least somewhat different, and more importantly – good. The cereal itself was awesome – basically sweetened corn Chex with Lucky Charms marshmallows. However, they didn’t stop there. Some of the boxes came with a Ninja Turtle shaped bowl – right on the box. No “send in 10 proofs of purchase” nonsense. It was shrink wrapped right to the box! The cereal was so popular, it lasted long enough to promote two different movies. I think, anyway. I just know it was around for a while, and at some point had flip books inside for TMNT:II.
I would cut this article off here, since it’s enough for a somewhat lazy history of licensed cereals. If you’re very generous with the term “somewhat”, anyway. But no, you are going to be treated to a genuine review of an honest to goodness new licensed cereal! New to me, anyway – I only saw it in stores recently. But given that the movie came out weeks ago, this cereal review probably is well past the “sneak preview” stage. This is closer to the $2 second-run theater of cereal reviews.
The Amazing Spider-Man cereal clearly knows its licensed cereal history, as the packaging alone borrows from many of the classic licensed cereal traditions. It has a flavor (and marshmallow shape!) lazily shoehorned into the movie’s theme, and has the main character present but not involved with the cereal whatsoever. It even has the extremely fake milk, although it looks too fake to even be the old “use glue instead of milk” trick, which I learned from “Zillions” magazine. The milk actually looks like claymation ghosts.
They don’t bother including a prize, instead going for the more lazy “activities” back cover. Among the activities are one of the most complicated-looking mazes I’ve ever seen, and some trivia questions. The trivia questions are odd, since they seem written by someone who hasn’t actually seen this Spider-Man version. They name the villain as the “Green Lizard” (?), and ask who said “With great power comes great responsibility”, despite the fact that this classic line (spoiler alert, I guess?) isn’t actually said in the movie.
But who really cares about the box? Well, truth be told, me – but beyond that probably not many people. Let’s get to the cereal itself!
Opening the box is a promising experience, because as soon as the bag is opened, you are greeted with an extremely powerful Strawberry Quik smell. One rather surprising aspect of the cereal is the shade of the web cereal pieces. Licensed cereals usually go for the ridiculous coloring. But this shade of red is strange and murky – almost maroon. No bright red or pink berry pieces to be found here.
One thing that’s impressive about the cereal pieces is their ability to evade picture taking. I tried with three different cameras, and each one resulted in a different color for the cereal pieces – and none of those three colors were the actual color of the cereal. Its color-shifting abilities are almost like that of a chameleon, or… The Chameleon. This is the most meta reference ever in a licensed cereal!
As for taste, it’s really good. I would say you could use this to tide yourself over until the fall, when Frankenberry is released. Except the Spider-Man cereal won’t be around for too long, so it isn’t a viable strawberry cereal survival ration.
Like any good cereal marshmallow, it adds almost nothing to the cereal-eating experience. While you know the cereal wouldn’t be anywhere near as good without the marshmallows, you could never come close to explaining why. Also, like any good cereal marshmallow, the marshmallows look nothing like The Lizard. Sorry, “The Green Lizard”. They look like little “Agent of Hydra” marshmallows.
Actually, what the marshmallows really look like is Twitch from Toy Story 3.
The cereal is not without its flaws, however. As part of an extremely distressing trend, like I mentioned when reviewing Krave cereal, The Amazing Spider-Man Cereal does absolutely nothing to the milk. With the strong Strawberry Quik smell, and potent berry taste, I was hoping for some Strawberry Quik-esque milk, or at the very least with some hints of Strawberry Yoo-Hoo. But no. Instead, we are just left with… milk.
Kellogg’s refused to coat the cereal pieces in extra berry powder, scientifically designed to immediately wash off into the milk. Why is this such a hard concept to implement? Get this idea fast tracked!
The other sort-of weakness is that as good as it tastes, there is this underlying “healthy” taste. God forbid, I know. But the cereal almost falls into this uncanny valley of cereal, where it tastes healthier than the stats show it to be. Not sweet enough to be a glorious kid’s cereal, not nutritionally strong enough to be a grown up’s cereal.
At the same time, the nutritional stats are pretty legit – almost identical stats as Honey Nut Cheerios (in fact this has one more gram of fiber per serving). And General Mills is always pushing Honey Nut Cheerios as a healthy sweet cereal. So feel free to classify The Amazing Spider-Man cereal as healthy, as well.
Overall, I give this a strong recommendation – Two Non-Organic Because That’s Stupid Mechanical Web Shooters Up!
Probably the biggest downside is the disgracefully small amount of cereal you actually get – 8.7 oz. Also, I guess the fact that by the time you read this, the cereal won’t even be on the shelves anymore. But as an attempt to continue in the grand tradition of the licensed cereal, The Amazing Spider-Man lives up to its predecessors’ attempts proudly.
As we move from the fun decorations of Halloween into the boring decorations of Autumn, it is a wonderful time to begin thinking of things we are thankful for. One recent incident I am thankful for reaffirmed my belief in good, although slightly lowered my faith in the reliability of automated packaging.
But truthfully, that second part isn’t very life changing for me.
I was doing my weekly stockpile of groceries that cause the cashier to look at the food on the conveyor belt, look at me, then back to the food to confirm what they thought they saw. Some of those items were a restock of my supply of Jovy Fruit Rolls. Since I had been overdosing on the top tier of flavors: apricot, grape, and orange-cherry, I decided to call up a couple of flavors from their minor league.
One of these was the raspberry flavor, which is a perfectly good flavor, but seems slightly softer than some of the others. And yes, I have reasons for preferring one flavor of fruit roll over another besides the flavor itself. It’s called having class.
While preparing them for their inevitable fate of being consumed, I noticed one of them felt… odd. Its balance was off, and the packaging looked strange and bloated. I realized what the possible reason for this could be, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
It seemed that this package did not just contain the expected single roll, but had the distinct possibility of containing… two rolls!
I was bracing for a letdown, as with my luck, that second roll was probably just a wadded up cellophane wrapper. Unable to hold off any longer, I tore it open like Charlie Bucket. And there it was:
Twins!
What a glorious surprise! My roll had just been upgraded from the DOOM shotgun to DOOM II’s double-barreled shotgun. Sure, it may load a little slower, but the increased damage made up for it.
Sorry, that metaphor went off the rails pretty quickly. But the point remains: two rolls!
So, out of all of 2011, that is what I am most thankful for.
It seems like the legend of the mythical Candwich has been floating around the internet forever. Really, it has probably only been about half a year, maybe slightly longer. But when the promise of a truly bizarre food product like a canned sandwich gets announced, any amount of time seems like too long to wait.
I was imagining the worst – a sandwich compressed into a sardine can, smushed in order to fit the tight space, then any shred of dignity it still had would get sucked right out during the vacuum sealing process. I guess “imagining” isn’t exactly the right word. “Hoping” would be the better description.
Because really, if you’re going to make a canned sandwich, the last thing you want is something respectable. That takes all the fun out of it.
After announcing that they would be releasing a canned sandwich upon the world, Candwich gave us time to let that concept sink in. There was plenty of time for this, because it seemed like it wasn’t for sale for months. Months filled with slowly dragging days, waiting for this gastronomic abomination to be unleashed on the public.
When they finally became available to purchase, Candwich decided to offer you two options to purchase them – go to Utah, or buy them in multi-packs online. Driving to Utah seemed like too much of a drastic step to take in order to obtain canned sandwiches, so I opted for the online purchase.
The Candwich people are smart, in that you can not order a single Candwich. Since they probably assumed the vast majority of their orders would come from people looking to quench their curiosity over a canned sandwich, the minimum amount you can order is four. So once you’ve had your canned sandwich, you better hope you liked it, because you’ve still got three to go!
After placing the order, the cans arrived rather quickly. I didn’t know what they were when they arrived, since I wasn’t actually expecting them to be delivered that fast. The return address said it was from Mark One Foods, which didn’t sound familiar. I assumed it was yet another one of the many food companies who send me free products and samples, in appreciation for all my efforts.
Okay, that actually doesn’t happen at all. But that’s fine.
After opening the package, the first thing that hit me was that these cans were gigantic. I was expecting something the size of a soda can, maybe smaller than that. Since the two uses they stressed for Candwiches were “on the go” and “emergencies”, I figured they’d be compact and easy to carry.
Instead, they come in tubes about the size of a can of Pringles.
After opening the first can, I assumed that the reason it came in such a large can was so that the bread wouldn’t get crushed. Which is nice, since the bread was in great condition, but again, the small size novelty is lost.
Adding to the “bakery fresh” aura that the bread already had was the fact that it isn’t pre-sliced. Classy!
I actually apologize for that obnoxiousness – it is probably better for the bread’s texture to not be pre-sliced. Although that is a guess, my knowledge of how to keep canned bread soft isn’t my area of expertise. The reason I am upset about the lack of pre-slicing is that I managed to cut my finger while slicing the bread. Which I’m sure is more my fault than the Candwich’s.
To their credit, the knife it comes with is pretty legitimate. You could probably cut someone’s head off with it, if you had enough time. Although that does make you question the “on the go” use of Candwich. It needs to be more of – “On the go, but make sure you pause your on-the-go-ness when using the knife, or you will most likely sever your index finger”.
Speaking of injuries, Candwich’s press materials are somewhat alarming. In multiple places on their site, as well as in their press release, sales sheet, and fact sheet, they constantly reinforce how great a solution Candwich is for emergency situations. Which is convenient, I suppose. I’d rather eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich than, say, this.
But does Mark One Foods know something we don’t about an impending apocalypse? I just can’t help but get a “you might want to stock up on emergency supplies, unfortunately we can’t go into specifics” vibe from their information.
In their press release, Mark One Foods describes the Candwich as being similar to an MRE (Meals Ready-to-Eat (I guess MRE was catchier than MR-t-E)). But I will definitely say this for the Candwich – it is a hell of a lot more appealing than an MRE. At least the Candwich still looks like the food that’s listed on the packaging.
Back to the matter at hand: preparing the meal which, according to Mark One Foods, is the only thing standing between me and cannibalism in the coming years. After managing to slice the bread relatively cleanly, it was time to dispense the most important part of the sandwich – the peanut butter. The jelly certainly isn’t the most important part, in case you were wondering. Cretin.
The peanut butter had a rather unappealing sheen to it, making it sort of look like the bowel movement of a dog who had been eating a lot of crayons. Thankfully, it didn’t taste like that. I mean what I think that would taste like.
I’m always slightly disappointed that jelly manufacturers take some pride in their product, which results in that sad, dark shade of purple for their grape jellies. Why can’t it be a bright purple, like the Candwich can? I can’t imagine that anyone would be too offended; in fact I’m sure they’d be delighted by a near-glowing shade of purple. The majority of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are eaten by children and adults with a wonderfully low set of standards, so everyone who partook in eating the improved jelly would be happy.
Someone get on that.
After being somewhat disappointed that the sandwich didn’t look as disgusting as I had hoped from the “canned sandwich” description, I was even more let down to find out the sandwich was actually good. The bread’s texture was fine, and the surface of it had this sweet glossiness to it. The peanut butter tasted much better than it looked, as did the jelly (especially because it looked so dark and depressing).
Once the sandwich was finished, it was time for the snacks. The first snack was a cherry Laffy Taffy. I was a little upset that it was cherry, since cherry Laffy Taffys tend to taste like cough syrup. But at least it wasn’t banana or green apple.
Oddly enough, the pre-packaged and sealed Laffy Taffy didn’t fare nearly as well as the sandwich. It was all melted, and stuck to the wrapper. Washing my hands after eating it took about three times longer than the actual eating process.
I really wouldn’t recommend the other snack. I’m not sure exactly what it’s supposed to taste like, but it was awful.
So, the future has arrived. We are eating canned sandwiches and Dippin’ Dots, just as the prophecies predicted. Not Mark One Foods’ prophecies, mind you, as those are filled with predictions of the world dying in a blazing inferno, only to survive to re-build society, stomachs filled with canned sandwiches.
Which seems kind of cool, at least. After the nuclear apocalypse, I’d rather eat canned sandwiches than Fancy Lads Snack Cakes.
I’m just going to come right out and say it: when I saw Cheese Jerky in the display case of a convenience store, my first reaction was, “Wow, that sounds like the most white trash, disgusting thing ever.”
Then my brain shook its mouse, and got itself out of sleep mode. As soon as my logical thoughts kicked in I thought, “Hold on, this needs to be re-evaluated.”
As you no doubt already know, the landmark case of McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), declared beef jerky to be one of the greatest foods in existence.
And despite the fact that I liked it better when string cheese came on the same sheet of packaging (the five sticks suspended within the wrapper, and you would tear them off one at a time), string cheese is also some of the finest cuisine in the land.
So my brain, somewhat embarrassed at its initial insults, went into overclocked calculation mode and spit out this result: This is amazing.
Of course, this result came while still missing some vital information: how it actually tasted, possibility of creepy textures, or the possibility that it tastes like cat food.
Needless to say, I bought it. This had to be some sort of taste extreme. It would either be incredible, or it would be vile. There could not be any middle ground.
In order to give this review some sense of legitimacy, I will mention Cheese Jerky’s ingredients. For such a shady sounding concept, the ingredients list is surprisingly legitimate. Essentially just cheese and beef jerky, no bizarre science experiment ingredients. This is especially impressive for the beef jerky, which can often be made up of dozens of weird things. The quality of the jerky in Cheese Jerky is evident by its first three ingredients: Beef, Water, and Brown.
It’s possible that my terrible picture is causing me to miss a few letters, but I think we’re all okay with “Brown” being acceptable as an ingredient.
One thing Cheese Jerky doesn’t really have going for it is looks. As you can see, without a wrapper or any sort of identification, this isn’t the sort of snack you’d see and think, “Hm, that looks good! I have got to try that!” More likely, if you saw this sitting on a plate, you would just ask, “Is that… food?”
Luckily for Cheese Jerky, I’d have to assume that the people who not only like beef jerky and string cheese, but who actively crave them together, probably aren’t too worried about aesthetics. The important question is: how does it taste?
Lady and gentleman, I am pleased to inform you that Cheese Jerky is awesome. It manages to dodge every one of the (numerous) ways this could have gone horribly wrong.
Before trying it, I had actually been almost expecting more of a cheese-covered-jerky taste and texture. Thankfully, this is not the case. Because that sounds kind of terrifying.
Most of the jerky pieces are very small. It’s pretty much the jerky left at the bottom of the bag, after you’ve taken out all the big pieces. And since the pieces are too small to pick up, you try to pour it in your mouth, but they don’t come out, so you tap the bottom of the bag, and the entire mound of jerky proceeds to fall all over your face.
Those kind of pieces.
And thinking about it, small pieces are perfect. The idea of these two tastes together is interesting, but the idea of these two textures together seems annoying. Chewy and Chewier. Instead, with the little pieces of jerky, it gets its point across without being gross.
The cheese itself is quite good, as well. I hate it when string cheese is too soft, and this cheese had a nice resilience to it. I’m tempted to use a phrase like al dente, but let’s not get ridiculous.
There’s really not too much else to say. McCartney and Lennon, Morrissey and Marr, beef jerky and string cheese. A new Dream Team for the ages!
Besides the product itself, Cheese Jerky’s web site is surprisingly intriguing. Mostly because one of the first things you notice is a large picture advertising the “Cheese Jerky Diet”. When you click on it, it leads you to a suspicious “Coming Soon” page. There’s some other information, but probably the best part about the site is that it lets you know that its CEO, Ross Segel, has the title of “Chief Snack Technician”. Which really, is one of the coolest job titles imaginable.
And there you have it. When you even heard the name “Cheese Jerky”, you knew it would be either one of the best foods imaginable, or a horror show. And despite the fact that either result would still be interesting, I am proud to put my good name (?) on the line to give Cheese Jerky two thumbs up.
I really am a loser when it comes to a lot of things. One of the better examples of this is that I read soda industry news sites and message boards, to see what new products are coming out.
Do I work in the industry? No. I just like soda. Even though I write about it all the time, I don’t get free samples (HINT!), and companies don’t send me test products to review. Because really, what company would want a review formatted as “This soda was good. Now here’s an unrelated, two thousand word tangent.” Although you probably could chop up one of my reviews into a really good tag line. “Peach Fresca… better… than… Disney World.”
How I am with soda is similar to how I am with cereal. I look around, see what’s out there and coming up. However, Kellogg’s new offering, which was plucked straight from Heaven and delivered to store shelves, apparently went unnoticed by me when it was being announced.
In literally the first paragraph I ever wrote for this site (well, ignoring the glorious members.aol.com days), I mentioned Raisin Mini-Wheats. This was also back when I was incredibly cheap with bandwidth, presumably, since I have no other explanation for the awful compression I put that picture through.
The fruit Mini-Wheats came in a few other flavors, but Raisin was far and away the best. This is, without a doubt, one of my favorite cereals ever. And it was taken away from me. The only explanation for this is that someone with power didn’t want me to reach high levels of happiness, so they put pressure on Kellogg’s (no apostrophe in this case? I don’t even know) to cancel the cereal. There is no other logical explanation.
So the other day when I was in the store, and looking in the Frosted Mini-Wheats section (which by now is up to approximately twenty nine varieties), my life was given renewed hope.
Usually whenever I see the “NEW!” slogan on a Mini-Wheats box, it just means they added some new flavor to the frosting. Probably “Blueberry Cobbler Struesel Banana Cream Pie” or something similar. Some of the flavored Mini-Wheats are good, but I’ll stick with the original. Although the Strawberry Delight does make the milk taste like Strawberry Quik, so it’s got that going for it.
And I certainly avoid Post’s version. Little thin squares of danger. Those corners are sharp.
No, instead of a new frosting flavor, Kellogg’s had reached into their glorious history and was inspired by one of their greatest creations ever: the Mini-Wheat filled with fruit.
The downside I saw was immediate: instead of Raisin, it was “Mixed Berry”. That was mildly alarming. One reason Raisin tends to be a good filling is because it’s not disgustingly sweet. Too often “Mixed Berry” just tastes like the inside of a Pop-Tart. Which is good when you’re eating a Pop-Tart, not necessarily for cereal. Also, please bring back the Pokemon Pop-Tarts. Those were amazing.
The other change was that this time the fruit Mini-Wheat was frosted. This was also a bit of a concern, since I was worried that the frosting plus the filling would make it too sweet.
Just to clarify, this isn’t a retroactive thought process. This is what actually goes through my mind while looking at cereal.
Despite my minor concerns, that didn’t stop me from making what I felt was a wise investment – four boxes of “Frosted Mini-Wheats – Touch of Fruit In the Middle – Mixed Berry” cereal. Boy, that just rolls right off the tongue, huh?
Instead of waiting until I woke up in the middle of the night at 3 AM to eat cereal like I usually do, I had a bowl as soon as I got back to work.
As soon as I did, all my concerns were washed away. I don’t know if this was a conscious decision by Kellogg’s, or if it is just my need to rationalize this cereal’s need to exist (because it DOES), but it seems like the Mini-Wheats themselves have less frosting than the other varieties.
If this was done on purpose: Bravo, Kellogg’s. Your cereal scientists brilliantly knew to balance the frosting and fruit without being too sweet.
As for the filling, I like it. Admittedly, it’s no raisin. Hence it not saying “Raisin” on the box, so fair play to Kellogg’s. But for “Mixed Berry”, it’s not at a super sweet level, so it makes for a good balance.
The overall cereal experience – fan-freaking-tastic. The first bite I had, where it went from crunchy/sort-of-like-a-bale-of-hay wheat to that very slightly chewy center, I had flashbacks to the Raisin Mini-Wheats.
I don’t normally grade the food I review, I usually just let the review speak for itself. Which probably isn’t a very good idea. So in this case, I will declare Touch of Fruit Mini-Wheats to receive the grade of A++++100%+++. Plus.
So please – PLEASE – go out to the store and buy thirty boxes of these. If you don’t want them, send them to me. I’ll split the postage. But this cereal needs to sell extraordinarily well, so it continues for a long, long time.
Diet Coke-Babies 
