One round back to the original

When you stand at breakfast cereal aisle, where do your eyes rest?

 

Depending on your age (and age dependent preferences yada yada), your eyes would focus on the brightly-coloured, attention grabbing boxes that scream "honey pops" or the like; on the very healthy Weetabix and rolled oats sections; or as middle-ground, the Post cereals section.

 

As a child, I absolutely adored the eye-boggling myriad of cereals that I could choose from every Sunday. The box I eventually chose had to, of course, fulfill the conditions my mother set on nutrition, price and value. But there was still a lot to choose from, and it helped that I learnt how to convince my mother on the benefits of yet another box of Koko-krunch/ Apple Cheerios/ Oreo Minis/ Wafflecrisps (I still have a soft spot for these)/ Fruitloops and its descendants/ Flintstone Something/ Chex/ Chocolate Peanut Butter Whatevers-fortified with Multivites-with cardboard backs of super fun mazes/crosswords/spot-the-difference-games-and-oh-here's-a-free-toy cereal.

 

However, there was one which I wouldn't even pick up. That was the ubiquitious Corn Flakes, with the green rooster in all its crowning glory. It just seemed so boring in terms of taste and style, and there was just no fun factor. Even after migrating from cutesy sugary cereals to toasted muesli and almond sprinkled adult-ish wheat flaked cereals, I just didn't like corn flakes. In fact, even Frosties was boring because it was just a sugar-coated version of the same old thing.

 

Then the wheat crunch hit. Wheat prices shot through the roof, and breakfast cereals went from staples to luxury items in a week.

 

Out of steadfast loyalty (and habit; and greediness), I was adamant not to have to give up my cereals. So I learnt how to assemble and bake muesli and granola. Home-made ones cost approximately only half what a store-bought version would, and I could always vary ingredients to suit my taste buds.

 

Because it is a good base ingredient for the baked muesli, I started buying corn flakes. Yes you heard me right. I started buying corn flakes which I had previously dismissed as too boring to eat. It wasn't too long before I started snacking on corn flakes while waiting for the oven to be heated, and it really wasn't too long after that when I started enjoying corn flakes as a breakfast cereal.

 

Contrary to being unexciting, I found its sugar-less crunch appealing and somewhat comforting. Perhaps the weaning off sugar has allowed my taste buds to discern subtle (corny? Haha) flavours. So it came to be that my idea of a weekend morning treat now would be a bowl of corn flakes, only made mildly soggy by milo, as I snuggle up to a good read of the week's (borrowed) Gourmet foodie magazine. What a big turn round, back to the original.

 

I must be mellowing.

 

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Oh yes, the reason for this cerealsly odd reflection came about because when my tummy rumbled late at night, all I craved for was corn flakes in milo. That struck me as rather odd. Lol J