Take a Minute to Appreciate the Cheerio
I dare you to name something more comforting and delicious. I’m talking about plain Cheerios, don’t even try to talk to me about chocolate or apple-cinnamon or fruity or frosted or honey nut. Their added sweetness has nothing on the taste of the original Cheerio. In my humble opinion, if all the Cheerio varieties competed in a footrace, I guarantee that plain, old, original Cheerios would win by a full lap, followed by honey nut in a far second, and the other ones would collapse before even making it to the finish line.
You may think, “Cereal — that’s something that has to be eaten in a bowl with milk.” No! Cheerios don’t even need milk; they’re delicious all on their own. Milk complicates things, because time becomes an important factor: Cheerios can’t be left in a bowl of milk for very long before their crunch turns to mush. They can be enjoyed wet or dry, with fingers, with a spoon, and even a fork, which I’ve never personally tried but I’ve thought about it and it checks out.
What does a Cheerio actually taste like? They can’t be compared to any other food, not even to other cereals. I know Cheerios are made of oats, but I only know that because it says so on the box, not because I think they taste like oats. I’m not even sure what oats taste like, but I’d say kind of bland, like plain oatmeal. Anyway, the most magical part about a Cheerio isn’t the flavor, it’s the texture. They melt in your mouth and are satisfyingly crunchy at the same time. Every box of Cheerios is exactly the same, and this is key. They’re invariably consistent, right down to the characteristic Cheerio dust at the bottom of the box.
If you’re puzzled about my fascination with a mass-produced cereal brand, just let me try and explain. No one can truly remember what their first food was, but if we can trust my parents on this one, mine was Cheerios. They swear that we lived so close to the General Mills factory in Minneapolis that you could smell Cheerios in the air. My earliest memory of Cheerios from my own brain: I was around four. My bedside table that I vandalized with pink and purple pen and many stickers had a small torn piece of paper on it, which featured, in my mom’s handwriting, a bright blue “8:30.” The paper was for weekend use only. Today I would read the note in my head as “eight-thirty,” but to my small self it was “eight-three-zero.” Eight-three-zero was the much-anticipated magic number when, once I saw it on the clock, I was finally allowed to run into my parents’ room and wake them up.
At some point, probably after being startled awake long before eight-three-zero, my parents began leaving a bowl of (dry) Cheerios and a cup of orange juice for me to eat downstairs, where I’d enjoy my breakfast alone while watching TV. I still remember the bowls for these early morning Cheerios. We had three of them, one blue, one purple, and one goldish yellow. They were rubber and were somehow engineered so that kids could eat out of them without spilling. Maybe pre-eight-three-zero is the reason eating Cheerios makes me feel so content. I knew I was waiting for my day to start, for the clock to read the magic time, but it didn’t feel like waiting.
I’m starting to think my family would be a great part of an ad campaign about Cheerio lovers. I wouldn’t go as far to call Cheerios my favorite food, nor did I realize until recently that they were so important to me. I can eat them any time of the day and anywhere. There’s something explicitly comforting about the Cheerio. Throughout all this time, they have stayed with me and stayed the same, even though I haven’t. (Wow that sounds so corny lol)
