My Love Affair with Cereal

There were only two kinds of breakfast growing up, hot and cold. Hot was porridge (oatmeal to you Americans) and cold was cereal. Like the clocks going back or forward, my mom switched us from hot to cold and cold to hot once a year, when the weather turned towards winter or summer. It was always a day of joy when cereal and cold milk were waiting for us at the breakfast table.

It wasn't sugary cereal - mainly Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies and Weetabix (not common over here, but you can get it in Trader Joes). Once in a while we'd have Frosties or Sugar Smacks, but usually it was the boring stuff, which suited me just fine.

I loved cereal, and would happily have it for every meal. I think all of the Galvin kids were like that growing up. So my mom's rule was cereal only at breakfast, and only one bowl.

She bought us glass bowls just for cereal. They were big and could hold a lot of cereal, so one bowl was plenty. Nonetheless, my bowl of Krispies or Flakes invariably towered like a mountain above the lip of the bowl when I poured my own. My mom, busy with feeding the others, would catch sight of the enormous drift of cereal I was tucking into, and go, "Oh Anne..." I would say defensively, "The milk made it swell up."

My brother John had his way of eating cereal. He only ever wanted "Weetabix-crunched-up-no-milk-only-sugar." This was also the guy who regularly ate a bowl of ketchup with his potato chips, and who ordered "fizzy-orange-in-a-bottle-with-a-straw" when we went to pubs or hotels with our parents. (John and I were also the only ones to have imaginary pet monsters growing up; his was The Crispality, and mine was Skippedy - no wonder we get on so well!)

We were not angel kids; there were plenty of fights and back-talk and sulking, but in general we weren't rule breakers. So I may have gazed at the boxes of cereal longingly after school, but it wouldn't occur to me to break the rules and have some, even if Mam wasn't home (I don't think my dad would have noticed what we were eating.)

Liz and I did break the rules one night though. Mam was out and we got ourselves two bowls of Rice Krispies. But before we could pour the milk, we heard Mam coming in the front door, greeting our brothers. Liz and I looked at each other in horror. I ran out the back door with the two bowls and flung the Krispies out into the dark garden, towards the vegetable patch. I made it back to the kitchen and hid the bowls in time.

Liz and I could barely sleep that night. We were sure that the morning light would reveal a garden covered with tiny yellow lozenges of rice, sure we would be caught and scolded. But morning came and there was nothing there. I guess the dawn birds had eaten it all, or else I overestimated the visibility of Rice Krispies flung into potato plants and lettuce.

Now, years later, I can have cereal whenever I want. But it's dangerous. I can't really have it in the house, because I love it just as much as ever, and when cereal is in the house, nothing else sounds as good, not Eric's risotto, grilled chicken, salmon with roasted fingerling potatoes, nothing.

I was talking about cereal with Evany's boyfriend Marco and he told me that he wasn't supposed to have cereal for dinner either. His mom was still at work when he got home, so he would eat a bowl of cereal, wash and put away the bowl, then dirty another bowl with whatever he was supposed to have, soup or meatloaf or whatever. Then he would get into trouble for not washing that bowl. Such an elaborate ruse, but cereal makes it all worth it.

Comments

[Sequana]

Oh, I can relate. I've never like all the sugary stuff - just good ole Wheaties, Cherrios....and Malt O' Meal in the winter, with brown sugar on it.

No better dinner in the world. *S*

[uberdilf]

I don't mean to feed an addiction, but are you aware of http://www.cereality.com ?

[Sarah]

I could eat cereal day-in, day-out for months, and in my family it was perfectly acceptable to do just that - if it saved my Mum making a meal, then all the better! Now I'm living with my boyfriend who just doesn't understand the allure of the cereal perfection and who states that it is "not a proper tea". Oh yes it is! I'm glad to have found another cereal-fiend!

[Lloyd]

Referenced at: http://breakfastbowl.blogspot.com/2008/02/cereal-and-bloggers.html

[kelly]

I found you from sfgirlbybay and I just gotta say that I agree with you 100%. Cereal! Mmmm!

[kelly in SF]

that's funny-- I'm another Kelly who found you from sfgirlbybay. and-- swear to god-- I was just just checking online before I went to fix myself a bowl of cereal.