This morning, I was eating a combination of Grape Nuts[tm], Rice Krispies[tm], and Sugar Crisp[tm]. I know, kind of bizarre, but try it – it is really good.
Anyway, breakfast cereal is something we entrust the Great Food Preparation Companies with. Most of us still have faith in breakfast cereal. It is high in fiber and minerals and vitamins, and I think is a fairly good way to start off the day.
Then it hit me. The 3 things in this bowl look like no identifiable food substance ever encountered by man more than 75 years ago. What is this crap? How do you start with a grain of rice and make it a “Krispie”[tm]? It vaguely grain shaped still. I’ve read the Dope column on why it is called a “Grape Nut”[tm] but I still have no freakin clue of how you start with malt, barley, wheat or whatever and end up with a Grape Nut[tm]. Sure, a Sugar Crisp[tm] looks vaguely natural. To me, it looks like a dried dehydrated bean, but it sure don’t taste it.
How do you make a Honeycomb[tm]? How bout a Crispix[tm]? Should we be asking these questions? Isn’t it about time that we started asking the same questions to the Kellogs’[tm] of the world that we ask to the other guys who provide us with unidentifyable food sources (Spam[tm] for example)?
The funny-shaped ones like Honeycomb start out as dough, then it’s forced through an extruder, like a giant cookie press. Baked on a huge conveyor belt. Bagged, boxed, shipped, stocked, checked out, carried home, consumed.
The flaked ones also start out as dough, but they go through rollers that flatten them into shapes. Baked on a huge conveyor belt. Bagged, boxed, shipped, stocked, checked out, carried home, consumed.
The crumbly ones like Grape-Nuts start out as dough which is sent through a different kind of machine that turns it into Grape-Nuts shapes. Bagged, boxed, shipped, etc.
Rice Krispies and Honey Crisp (they don’t call it Sugar Crisp anymore 'cause sugar is bad for you :rolleyes: ), I presume, go through the same process.
Are you starting to get the idea here? The wheels on the machine go round and round, and breakfast cereal comes out the other end. If you’re that worried about it, why do you eat it?
Spam is far from “unidentifiable”–it is spiced pork shoulder. Pork shoulder may also be found at the meat counter under the name “picnic ham”. It’s not as tidy a cut of meat as a regular “ham”, which is the hind leg. But you can trim it and grind it up and make Spam out of it.
I knew the bit about Spam, because I assumed somebody wised up to the processed food thing and quizzed Hormel about it.
I nonetheless submit to your vast knowledge about comestibles. I am delighted to know that it is only huge machines making my cereal, not underpaid Azerbaijani child war refugees.
On another topic, my wife wants to know how they make frozen popcorn shrimp. Any answers?
I have always suspected that Rice Krispies are popped rice. If I’m right, the water in the grain makes it “explode” when heated, as with popcorn. I’ve never known for sure, but I’ll try to find out now.
Well, sometimes the high quality ones just take shrimp, batter or bread it, fry it and then freeze it. The other kinds of frozen popcorn shrimp that you find is shrimp and some kind of cheap fish (similar to what they use to make that fake crab meat) and grind it together, form it into shrimp shapes, batter or bread it, fry it and freeze them.
Rice Krispies are puffed rice loaded with white sugar. Puffed rice in itself is nothing weird. Grains naturally have a little moisture sealed within and when heated, it bursts out all at once, making puffed grain. That’s what popcorn is. The American Indians invented popcorn long ago. When I was in India, they had a traditional snack used in religious ceremonies made of puffed rice with bits of fruit, coconut, and sugarcandy. Another popular Indian snack is salted puffed rice mixed with spices and fried garbanzo noodles.
Sugar Krisp is puffed barley – again, loaded with white sugar.
Grape-Nuts was the original “granola” in the 19th century. It was made by forming wheat dough into an unleavened loaf and baking it very slowly. Of course, that made it hard as a brick. So they hammered it into little fragments. This is the stuff they invented the word granola for, not the baked oatmeal preparation that goes by that name today. Has nothing to do with grapes or nuts. They call it “Grape-Nuts” because it tastes nutty, and because the starch in the wheat is partially converted into glucose by the heat, making it more easily digestible (same idea as zwieback, ‘twice-baked’). Glucose was once called “grape sugar.”
The odd thing about breakfast cereal is that only Americans eat it. Breakfast in Asia is rice or rice porridge. In Africa it’s millet porridge. In the Middle East it’s pita bread, olives, and feta cheese. In Switzerland they munch raw oatmeal that had been mingled with grated apple overnight (the enzymes break down the starch). In France it’s café au lait and French bread with jam & butter. In Italy they don’t really eat breakfast, they just drink coffee with maybe some cookies.
Even in America, “breakfast cereal” is a fairly recent innovation. It used to be ham & eggs, cornmeal mush or grits, and flapjacks. Most of the population worked down on the farm in those days and they chowed down huge breakfasts. Po-folks had to eat disgusting stuff like scrapple.
We owe our modern cereal to Harvey Kellogg. He was a Victorian-era puritan with an aversion to sex. He invented corn flakes in the belief that this kind of diet would prevent lustful urges.
This reminds me a lot of the Graham cracker story. Supposedly he invented them to get people to stop masturbating. Seems its working due to the absolute paucity of porn availible in the world today. Maybe Cecil did a column on this, but the search engine isn’t working right now…
I swear. I graduated from high school in '93. Been in school ever since, and I still have at least 5 more years to go before I graduate. Then, residency/fellowship/postdoc is another 5-10 years. In all that time, I’ve learned an amazingly little amount of stuff about breakfast cereal, and I don’t expect the future to be filled with “Molecular Biology of Oops! Just Crunchberries!”. What was I doing all that time?
Sorry, Edwino, I guess I omitted to mention that the machines are actually operated by underpaid Azerbaijani child war refugees. They say the younger they are, the better, because then it’s easier for their little hands to reach in and unclog the Honeycomb machinery when the Honeycombs pile up.
Also, in the middle of the night I realized it’s not Sugar Crisp that was renamed “Honey”, it was Sugar Smacks that was renamed “Honey Smacks”. I think. Here at this end we revolve mainly around the Cheerios/Wheaties/Corn Chex axis, so I don’t pay much attention to the overtly sugar cereals.
And as for how they make frozen popcorn shrimp, well, the mommy shrimp and the daddy shrimp get together…
Actually, I thought those little teeny shrimp were actual shrimp. You’re telling me they’re just Alaskan pollack in yet another form? Another reason for me to feel guilty about Gulf of Alaska over-fishing?
P.S. FTR, scrapple is incredibly tedious stuff to make. Only a farm wife or pioneer woman anxious not to waste any morsel of potential food would bother making it.
Graham cracker story - Graham was looking for something to absorb ahol and prevent or maybe treat (?) the morning after hangover. Imagine having such a lofty objective and ending up as a kid’s cookie!
I remember a big stink about sugar and honey - sugar was too refined and cause all sorts of sorted things but honey, mmm was good for you. Now, of course, honey carries some virus that young children are supposed to avoid and who knows what else.
There was another big question about dextro or levo sugars being easier to digest and better for us! I have my Honey Nut Cheerios with milk in a bowl and don’t even read what’s on the box any more.
My search engines are all conked out but IIRC it’s botulin toxin that can make honey unsafe for children. FWIW it’s a bacteria not a virus that causes it.
Re: Graham. Yes, he invented graham crackers as a food that would not inflame passions.
John Harvey Kellogg was probably even wierder. A staunch advocate of the benefits of colonic irrigation, he was, to borrow an apt term from an unrelated “Kids in the Hall” sketch, “some kind of demented ass freak”.
Kellog on masturbation:
Consider THAT with your corn flakes.
An amusing article where both those quotes came from:
Kelloggs & Ralston Purina both have their factories in Battle Creek Michigan, where the machines are operated by red-blooded, unionized workers. You can’t tour the kellogg factory anymore as they’ve put up a little museum called ‘Cereal city’. interesting but kind of a bummer as I like factory tours. Anyway, in the museum they have this display that shows what different cereals look like at differnt stages. Rice Crispies looks like malted rice. Froot Loops looks like Play-Doh (ew). Are Sugar Crisp the same as Frosted Flakes? The latter is made by making a loose dough from corn & wheat, letting it partially dry and then milling it through rollers to create the “flakes.” then baking it, of course.
A friend told me that every now and then Kelloggs or Ralston burns a batch and it makes the entire city of Battle Creek reek of burnt baked goods.
Yeah. They had to get “sugar” out of the name. They’ve since evolved further to just “Smacks”. My wife just bought a box because they were on sale, and she could get a different “Hot Wheels” car that way. :rolleyes: I’ve had to supress the urge to beat my wife and kids lately… (just kidding on the last part, for the sarcasm impaired.)
There also used to be “Super Sugar Crisps” when I was young, but they dropped the “sugar” part also. I’m not sure what “Sugar bear” became, or if they just dropped him too.
