Has the Stuf-ification of society reached a creamily critical mass? Has the waxing trend of ascetic minimalism led cookie fans to ditch their earthly possessions and irrational need for continually and ridiculously escalating Stuffiness?
As we discussed on the latest Empty Bowl episode, all the gimmick Oreos in the world still can’t hold up against the O.G. version—except for Oreo Cakesters, of course, but that’s a topic for another time…or an entire dedicated fan site. So while I’m beyond happy that new Mega Stuf Oreo O’s bring the cereal back to its Extreme Creme glory days, I have to keep in mind these changing cultural conceptions surrounding Stuf. It appears crispy chocolate is eclipsing buttery goo in popularity once more, putting Mega Stuf Oreo O’s to the ultimate test of modernized–retro willpower.
How convenient: just days after I dunked on Americanized Oreo O’s for not staying true to 2002’s Extreme Creme Oreo O’s (ostensibly the definitive, Game of the Year Edition of Oreo O’s), we get this.
Perhaps rightfully realizing the prurient wordplay potential of high-octane creme, the Oreo O’s + marshmallows equation has been redubbed Mega Stuf Oreo O’s. Equally plausible is a necessary signal boost for actual Mega Oreo cookies, whose excessive novelty has been rendered practically obsolete by the self-lampooning leviathan that is The Most Stuf Oreo cookie. Continue reading →
See, despite the best efforts of cereal curators and Ralston researchers such as myself, no one knows exactly when this crunchiest day of the year was first commemorated, nor who it was that first raised their (presumably) marble mug–bowl hybrid to propose the occasion. That said, if you’d like to pretend it was my Great Grand-Pappy Cerealously IV, a humble Crunch Berry farmer from the milkily humid tropics, I wouldn’t be opposed.
All we know is that since the day starting gaining mainstream traction near the turn of the 21st century, National Cereal Day has remained more popular amongst food and local news outlets than other, more contested days. Perhaps it’s a testament to the comparative cultural significance of breakfast cereal, or perhaps just to the PR power of big cereal companies—bless them all for stocking my pantry in time for National Napping Day next week.
Regardless of the date’s disputed origins, it almost always creeps up on me like a ghost in the night or the smotherly love of a 5am house cat. I tend to myself awakening in disbelief to “March 7th” on the calendar, scrambling past my plans for scrambled eggs to write something fitting for this blog’s bona fide breakfast star. But this year, my resolve was steely and my focus was clear: I simply had to write about the already-legendary Honey Brunches of Oats flavors Post hasreleased to both celebrate National Cereal Day and potentially initiate a bold new phase of the foodstuff’s future:
A dawning golden-brown—and perhaps, eventually, honey-mustardy—era of savory cereal.
Both these bite-sized barn animals have already been spotted in both Giant Eagle and Walmart stores, but my journey from farm to pantry was more of an a-graze-ing race. The kind folks at Post offered to send me a box, but after a postal system error—during which I cursed imagined package thieves before pitying them for the surprisingly fowl bounty they were about to unbox—I had to leave a polite mailbox note and desperately wait to hear from a distant neighbor in hopes they’d still have what was mistakenly delivered to them.
Thankfully, this kind soul was able to recover my morning soul food, and here I sit: pastorally sampling the stuff to see if it’s cud worth chewing or a dud worth ptooey-ing.
Thought Chicken & Waffles Cereal was going to get lonely in your pantry, ostracized by the other, “normal” cereals? Well fear no more: Post & the temporarily name-tweaked Honey Brunches of Oats are raising another barnyard cereal for National Cereal Day, so both sweet-meat munchies can find solidarity together as they slowly expire on your shelves.
Well, maybe. While I’ve voiced my hesitations about faux-flesh-flavored cereals, I have to admit the possibility that they may actually be good. After all, Maple Bacon is a bit more tame—especially given its pastried precedent—and given Post’s recent doughnutted decadence, I’m certainly willing to give this one a hearty (but hopefully not hot-doggy) try.
These Honey Brunches of Oats cereals will be hitting Walmart on or around 3/7/19. Though there’s still no word on whether the brand plans to complete their essential meat trilogy with Sweet & Spicy Hunan Beef Bites.
You’ve heard of snack attacks, but what about sneack attacks?
No, that’s not a typo: I firmly believe that Honey Bunches of Oats has perfected the art of the 800-pound guerrilla breakfast bombardment. Not even counting the recent, off-brand and Internet-splintering news of Honey Brunches of Oats Chicken & Waffles Cereal, the now 30-year old cereal brand has a history of dropping sneakily scrumptious new flavors at the start of the year, without the preemptive fanfare we see from most crunch-slingers.
In 2016, the masters of crispy (fried poultry or otherwise) flakes and granola bunches brought back Chocolate Honey Bunches of Oats, and in 2018 we got the criminally underrated Pecan & Maple Brown Sugar HBoOats. Pulling another break-fast one on us, 2019 has now been blessed with Apple Caramel Crunch Honey Bunches of Oats.
More than just an exciting concept, this is only the second major caramel apple cereal after 2011’s bone-mealed Caramel Apple Boulders. Where caramel apple’s sister flavor, apple cinnamon, gets a lot of cereal aisle representation—including an apparently discontinued(?) Honey Bunches variety—I’m glad to see its stickier sibling finally getting exposure.
Even if it is half a year before caramel apple’s typical seasonal setting of booing and bobbing. Guess I’ll just have to cut some eyeholes in my winter-grade weighted blanket before eating.
Oh no, this is all wrong: April 1st is still months (of snow and slush) away. I’m afraid we must accept an uncomfortable truth—food science’s rate of cereal experimentation has mutated far faster and more disturbingly than any human could possibly orchestrate.
Breakfast must be growing self aware. And it wants a taste of intelligent life.
First we saw cereal take on the shape and emotional imbalance of young humans. Soon it will use malleable marshmallow to mimic our planet’s cutest animals. But with this latest news? It’s trying to transmute itself into flesh.
Just a week ago, I got a cryptic tip in the comments section about a possible pseudo-Waffle Crisp revival. It wasn’t hard to picture what flavor was being hinted at, but I ultimately had no visual reference to go off of.
That is, until today, when Instagram users Dan J. and Canadian Candy Hunters shared this very real, very mouthwatering pore-watering box of Post & Honey Bunches of Oats’ Chicken & Waffles Cereal in Toronto. But while it may make sense that this sticky-skinned Southern comfort flavor has flown to land of maple syrup, U.S. thrill and grill-seekers need not fret: this Canadian-made cereal is hitting America.
To me, snack cakes are near-sacred totems. Arcane talismans that exude nostalgic simplicity and forbidden sweetness so concentrated that it can be hard to process for an adult stomach.
Ironic, since they’re so processed.
In more innocent times I gobbled Twinkies and Zebra Cakes with reckless abandon—I notoriously once went so far as to fit a whole Ho-Ho in my mouth on a self-administered dare. But now I merely visit them, usually in the convenience stores I consider their most fitting temples, gazing upon how impressively unchanged they are in a more health-conscious world that’s largely moved on without them.
So while I rarely partake in glazed glee any more, I’m excited that Hostess has teamed up with Post to turn two of its standout snacks into chibi cereal cakes. Granted, neither Honey Bun Cereal nor Powdered Donettes Cereal seem like obvious choices for the brand, but in a way, I’m glad: throwing chocolate and vanilla rings in a bag with marshmallows and calling ’em Cupcakes & Twinkies would’ve been too easy.
Geometricprecedents aside, let’s return to the world of swirled cereal buns and curvaceous donuts. Dare me to shove a whole box in my mouth?
Is the plight of a Sour Patch Kid—the bouts of malevolence, the brief repentance and hollow appeasement before death—not the same as humankind’s? Don’t we all go through some tangy and cantankerous times? Don’t we all sugarcoat the past and dismiss the future as a death-defined void?
Or is Sour Patch Kids Cereal just churning my grey matter to the point of philosophical pontification?
I’m sure by this point you’ve heard the buzz and resultant public outcry surrounding Post’s latest outlandish cereal crossover. Many speak of it as a freak of nature, a forbidden union of candy and socially accepted breakfast candy. They fear it could rot teeth, and erode even a kitchen drain with its anticipated über sweetness. But hey, it got Andy Milonakis to quote tweet me, so maybe the Xenomorph blood-stained plumbing accidents will be worth it.
There’s only one way to find out, and it required me to wait for 15 minutes by a stack of clearance dog food while a Walmart employee fished one box (“really? just one box?”) out of the back of the store for me.
