Cereal Review: The Amazing Spider-Man Cereal – Plus Bonus Licensed Cereal History!

Posted by robbposch on July 13, 2012
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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.

Cereal Review: Frosted Toast Crunch, Krave, & Peanut Butter Cheerios

Posted by robbposch on February 4, 2012
Posted in: Cereal Reviews. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

At a certain point, getting very excited over new cereals goes from being a more-than-vaguely depressing concept to simply being one of the facts of life.  Well, of my life, anyway.

But with new cereals comes a wave of stress – it looks pretty good, but what if you buy it, and it isn’t?  Then you’re stuck with an entire box of cereal, less the bowl you’ve already eaten.  Unfortunately, even though it’s no good, throwing out food like that feels like a waste.  So you leave the almost-full box of cereal in your cabinet, until it finally goes stale.  Then you think, “Well, it’s stale now, I guess I should throw it out.”  I’ve been there.

So, as a public service to all of you, I have gone to great lengths to find the newest cereals, and let you know the straight scoop.  I don’t know why I phrased it like that.  That makes it seem like I’m making a pun on ice cream, which makes no sense.

Full disclosure: by “great lengths”, I mean I saw endcaps at Walmart with all new cereals.  Also, I didn’t get all of the new cereals I saw.  Some didn’t look very good.  So if you have complaints about the thoroughness of this, I probably won’t argue your point.

 

The first newcomer is an offshoot of Cinnamon Toast Crunch – Frosted Toast Crunch.  I probably didn’t need to tell you that, as it’s very obvious.  But I’ve got to get some facts in here somewhere, to balance out the ill-informed opinions that will surely be found elsewhere in this article.

On paper, Frosted Toast Crunch sounds kind of disgusting.  Cinnamon Toast Crunch is incredible, of course, but is already plenty sweet.  The “frosted” description makes you think it is merely the cinnamon toast pieces with some sort of glaze on them.  Thankfully, this is not the case.  I won’t get into the science of it, but the actual cereal pieces themselves are frosted flavored, rather than physically frosted.

Up to this point, I’m still not making a great case for them, I know.  It just makes them sound like really, really sweet Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  So I’m going to have to call in the big guns.  Frosted Toast Crunch tastes like a combination of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Rice Krispies Treats Cereal.  Boom.

 

And despite the “frosted” adjective, and Rice Krispies Treats comparisons, the cereal itself surprisingly isn’t too sweet.  No more than the standard Toast Crunch, anyway.   The only downside to it is that it doesn’t give you as much of the dark cinnamon specks in the milk when it’s finished.  Although I suppose when you need to cite that as a flaw, it’s a pretty successful attempt.

So Frosted Toast Crunch definitely gets my seal of approval (which is a cartoon drawing of me with my thumb up – I have yet to actually make it).  Just imagine the picture is here:

[insert seal of approval here]

Before venturing into scary territory of brand new cereals, we will look at another offshoot –  Peanut Butter Cheerios.  All the various Cheerios are always better than you’d think.  For such a dull original product, all of their spinoffs are almost always awesome.  The only one I don’t like is Apple Cinnamon.  Although to be fair, I think the last time I tried it was when I was 11, so it’s possible I may have grown to appreciate it.

 

Besides the “Cheerios spinoff being promising” angle, the other potentially great thing about them is that there aren’t really any great peanut butter cereals.  Of the major brands, Peanut Butter Crunch is ridiculously hard and painful to eat, Reese’s Puffs don’t taste that peanut buttery.  All of the other peanut butter cereals are either discontinued or soon to be – Peanut Butter Toast Crunch, Pebbles Boulders, Bart Simpson Cereal, and Peanut Butter KISS Krunch. 

Your only other option is to venture into that weird section of the cereal aisle, where that Clifford cereal always is, to get some Puffins, Panda Puffs, or Leapin’ Lemurs (why are the “healthy” cereals all named after animals?).

Given this peanut butter crisis, I was looking forward to Peanut Butter Cheerios.  Especially since Chocolate Cheerios were surprisingly awesome.  They make one of the best chocolate cereal milks out of any cereal around – look it up, they’ve done studies.

 

It certainly isn’t the most visually appealing cereals out there.  Just various shades of tan.  They could have at least thrown in some artificially colored neon orange pieces in there, for the Reese’s vibe.

What it lacks in looks, it makes up for in peanut buttery awesomeness.  It’s sweet enough to not taste like real health food, but not so sweet where it doesn’t actually taste like peanut butter.  Unfortunately, the cereal didn’t seep into the milk enough to give it much of a flavor.  But I guess sometimes you have to pick your battles – good cereal or good cereal milk?  You can’t always have both.  (Totally literary theming alert: this point will be applicable for the final two reviews.)

Overall, Peanut Butter Cheerios are a big success, and give the Cap’n’s attempt a big curb stomp.

[insert seal of approval here]

I’m going to review the final two cereals separately, even though they are just two different flavors of the same cereal.  But this way, I can say this roundup reviewed four cereals, which is one third more impressive sounding than three.

 

When I first saw the box for Krave, I thought it was some new Special K cereal.  Something about the box has that “it’s not unhealthy and doesn’t taste that great, but we can pretend it’s an indulgence!” look to it.  Like in that commercial where they try to tell you, “You don’t need that pint of delicious, rich chocolate ice cream – have this bowl of Special K with little chocolate pieces in it – it’s totally the same!”  It just has that vibe of trying to trick you into thinking it’ll taste good.

After looking a little more closely, it seemed it could have potential, but I just don’t like that box.  The “chocolate” spelling out the logo is more than a little off-putting.  And the rest either looks at best overly dietary, or at worst cheap.  It was just a very conflicting package.  It’s got cereal pieces practically oozing chocolate, yet talks about fiber. 

Although despite being next to the “Made with whole grain” claim, which tends to be mostly nonsense, it does have a legit amount of fiber per serving – 3 grams.  Which is pretty impressive, considering that except for Mini-Wheats, most of the cereals I eat tend to have an asterisk next to the fiber count, meant to signify “not even enough to be one gram”.

 

I wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to the cereal itself.  With the slimy looking logo and chocolate pouring out of the the cereal pieces, I didn’t know if they were going for a “cereal version of Gushers”, or a chocolate pizza roll type of deal.

Not surprisingly, and to be honest, thankfully, the chocolate did not ooze out like they imply.  It’s just sort of there.  But still good.  I really like the texture of the cereal itself, mostly because it’s different than most of the other cereals out there.  Due to both the cereal itself, and the fact that it’s sort of hollow, it has a strange-yet-good “soft” texture.  Enough to not be mush, but soft enough where if you want, you can push it against the roof of your mouth to mash it up, instead of chewing.

And, yes, this is my preferred method of eating it.

The flavor itself is really good, sort of a deconstructed Cookie Crisp.  Like I foreshadowed earlier, and you are no doubt overflowing with anticipation for, the milk results are nothing short of failure.  Due to the “pocket” aspect of the cereal, none of the chocolate leaks into the milk.  And the the cereal pieces themselves do basically nothing to the milk, either.  As a result, the milk at the end of this self-proclaimed “Chocolate” cereal results in nothing but plain milk!

But, like I mentioned earlier, choosing your battles and all that.  The cereal itself is good enough to somewhat overlook the disastrous milk.  

[insert seal of approval here]

 

Double Chocolate Krave doesn’t require much of an introduction.  It’s the same cereal we just went over, but the cereal itself is chocolate instead of, uh…  “Plain?”  I don’t know.

Overall, I like Double Chocolate more.  Because it’s more chocolate.  I’m not sure how much more I can elaborate on that.  I’m going with “not much”.

 

Compared to Chocolate, Double Chocolate’s milk has, indeed, double the chocolate that Chocolate did.  And by double, I mean that in the sense of “double of almost nothing still isn’t much”.  The milk has to be the absolute least chocolatey I’ve ever seen, when it comes to a chocolate cereal.  At least when you get to the bottom of the box, you can pour in all the crumbs and powder, and it will make it slightly better.

Like with regular Chocolate, Double Chocolate Krave is an awesome cereal that results in sub-sub-optimal milk. 

ProTip: Since the cereal isn’t very hard to begin with, you don’t need much milk.  Therefore, using less milk means less sad milk at the end of the bowl.  Or, if you’ve got a lot of milk left over, just throw some Quik in there or something.

[insert seal of approval here]

A successful round of cereals!  All of them come highly recommended.  And as soon as the next wave of fun and exciting new cereals come out, you can bet I will be there with the breaking updates.  As soon as I get around to it.

Jovy Fruit Roll’s Thanksgiving Miracle

Posted by robbposch on November 1, 2011
Posted in: Food, Holidays. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

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.

Food Review: Candwich

Posted by robbposch on September 14, 2011
Posted in: Food, Food Review. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

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.

Food Review: Cheese Jerky

Posted by robbposch on July 8, 2011
Posted in: Food, Food Review. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

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.

Cereal Review: Frosted Mini-Wheats Touch of Fruit in the Middle

Posted by robbposch on February 3, 2011
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

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.

My Week of Eating Nothing But Candy

Posted by robbposch on December 22, 2010
Posted in: Candy, Food, Food Review, Holidays. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

It’s that wonderful time of year again.  Where families gather to eat a metric ton of candy.  Okay, maybe that isn’t the Norman Rockwellian image of Christmas that most are familiar with.  But it does happen.

This year, it happens more than usual, since I spent an entire week eating nothing but Christmas candy.  I’d say it’s for science, or for entertainment, or some other half-hearted reason.  But mostly it’s because I really like eating candy.  I guess I’ll see just how much…

My Week of Eating Nothing But Candy  

The Thanksgiving Soda Taste Test

Posted by robbposch on November 5, 2010
Posted in: Soda Reviews. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, there hasn’t been a poorly-written article on soda in a while.”  Another soda article, you say?  No problem!

Just in time for Thanksgiving (if Thanksgiving has already passed for you, it is just in time for next year’s Thanksgiving), I have exhaustively researched two of Jones Soda’s Thanksgiving offerings.  Granted, one of the collections is from 2005 and the other one isn’t technically Thanksgiving-themed.  But if a very loose attempt at tying themes together seems shocking, you haven’t read much on this site.

 

The Turkey Soda Taste Test

The Insane Cereal Experiment

Posted by robbposch on November 5, 2010
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

One of the very first things I ever did for this site, in its illustrious members.aol.com days, was about homemade cereal.  I would get numerous (at least three) requests to visit that concept.

Now, thanks to advanced technology and an unlimited budget (neither of those things are true), we have the updated homemade cereal test.

Feast your eyes and appetites on:

 

The Insane Cereal Experiment