Both wrong.
The milk is AROUND the cereal.
Ah! It’s a kenning!
It’s floor wax!
Especially if your cereal is coated with a non-nutritive cereal varnish that is semi-permeable and non-osmotic.
Not saying you can’t have cereal alone, but my bag of bread flour gives nutritional information for just flour, that doesn’t mean the rest of the bread ingredients are optional.
That nutritional information is given for “Cereal with milk” as well as just for the contents of the box is in fact evidence that “Cereal with milk” is the predominant use for cereal. The nutritional information also being given for just cereal is just evidence cereal is food.
Where was the option for “Disgusting dreck I won’t have polluting my cereal?”
I hate milk in my cereal. I eat all cold cereals dry.
“Part of this complete breakfast.”
We had this same debate here a few years ago.
Usually I end up with more milk than cereal so maybe Cereal Soup. Cream of Cereal? Cereal Consomme? Crunchy Mush?
For it to be sauce or gravy, there would have to be a heavy ratio of cereal to milk. But it’s usually the other way around; the milk is practically soup. It’s to cereal what water-based soup is to noodles; it’s what the solid stuff lies in.
I guess “broth” would be the closest analogue, although it’s not quite that. It’s just, you know, milk.
I LOLed, which, of course, betrays my age…