This review is a long time coming. In fact, it’s been brewing in my brain since before this blog was even a glimmer in my temporal lobe.

First things first: I’m a lifelong maple cereal mark, born and bred. I mean, my blood is practically golden syrup’d cereal milk—which is why I bring a satchel of leeches to Denny’s. It might not’ve been the very first cereal to spark a journalistic interest in the stuff (that title, incidentally, goes to Cinnamon Honey Bunches of Oats), but Waffle Crisp nevertheless is one of the foundational cereals whose never-fading nostalgic spirit drives Cerealously to this day. Seriously: eau de Waffle Crisp is a fragrance so potently sentimental, physicists are considering it as theoretical time machine fuel.

And though Waffle Crisp is gone—at least for now, I weep to myself—granularly analyzing other maple cereals still gets me through the day. From modern classics and bold pairings to the genre’s lower lights, I’ve used just about every relevant adjective in the book to describe the breakfast aisle’s ever-shifting forest of maple tastes both authentic and sweetly synthetic. But ever since I first saw it on the side of my Brown Sugar Oatmeal Squares, one mythic maple cereal has eluded me.

Until now. See, I was always convinced that Golden Maple Oatmeal Squares was an antiquated, discontinued variety that Quaker forgot to take off the boxes of the line’s other three flavors. I searched and searched for years, even bookmarking Quaker’s product locator to no avail. But after Justin and I discussed the stuff’s scarcity during Episode Thirty-One of The Empty Bowl, a number of listeners confirmed that the stuff is still sold in stores—albeit only in very specific regional areas. One listener, Brooke from Wisconsin, was kind enough to send us both boxes to try.

So with my decade-old mission drawing to a close, one question remains: are Golden Maple Oatmeal Squares worth the long-fermented hype? Continue reading →