Fruit Brute and Other Forgotten Cereals

Wheaties and Rice Krispies have taken up permanent residency in America’s breakfast bowls—these forgotten cereals, not so much.

Fruite Brute and Other Forgotten CerealsFruit Brute: General Mills debuted a line of five monster cereals in the 1970s: Franken Berry, Yummy Mummy, Count Chocula, Boo Berry, and Fruit Brute. The biggest flop of the bunch: Fruit Brute. But it has a cool factor—filmmaker Quentin Tarantino collects old cereals, and his personal box of Fruit Brute has appeared in his movies Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. BREAKING NEWS: This Fall we will see the return of Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy for Halloween. This may be the best Halloween EVER!

Graham Crackos: Kellogg’s released this graham-cracker-flavored cereal in the late-1970s, a few years before the crack-cocaine epidemic that hit American cities. In light of this, old commercials for Crackos become unsettling. In one, a character named George arrives at a suburban house to deliver a box of Crackos to a new family. In the background, a cheery balladeer sings, “Something new is comin’ to town, George the Milkman is bringin’ it ’round.” After the mother takes a bite, she asks George if the cereal will help slow her kids down. “Long enough for them to eat,” he replies.

Food Facts: A Non-Vanilla Source of Vanilla

In the very near future, we might get vanilla from a source that sounds pretty gross, but is also incredibly environmentally friendly.

Do you love the way old books smell—musty and slightly smoky, but just a little bit spicy and sweet? (It’s what the BRI Headquarters smells like…really!) There’s actually a technical explanation for old book smell. It’s comes from a chemical called lignin, which is found in wood pulp. Wood pulp is used to make paper, and in that process, lignin gets exposed to air, or oxidizes. The oxygen in the air starts a chemical reaction in the lignin, and creates another chemical, called vanillin, which is one of the main compounds in vanilla. Old books smell slightly like vanilla, which scientists say is one of the most pleasing scents to the human nose.

There are only a few ways to get vanilla. The first and most obvious source is the vanilla bean or pod. But they’re relatively rare (growing mostly only on the island of Madagascar) and, of course, expensive—vanilla beans cost about a dollar each in stores. Another way is to synthesize it in an industrial laboratory. Vanilla flavor can be obtained from a chemical combination of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulphide, or by processing a petroleum-based chemical called guaiacol.

Fast Food Flops

Spinoffs are common in entertainment: Puss in Boots was a spinoff of a character from the Shrek movies, and All in the Family spun off a number of other hit TV sitcoms, including Maude and Good Times. Spinoffs are a lot less common in the fast food restaurant business. But in the late 1960s, two successful fast food chains tried to expand with new restaurants serving completely different food. The result: fast food flops.

Flop #1. After founder Harlan Sanders sold Kentucky Fried Chicken and allowed it to be aggressively franchised in the early 1960s, the chain’s popularity grew just as fast. By 1968 it was the sixth-largest restaurant chain in America and worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Rather than saturate the market with even more KFC locations, the company opted to start a second restaurant chain: Kentucky Roast Beef & Ham. The new chain sold all the standard KFC side dishes. But instead of chicken, they served roast beef and ham. Launched in 1968, all the roast beef and ham restaurants were converted into chicken joints by 1973.

What’s On Tap? 5000-Year-Old Beer Recipe

Beer has been around for centuries—lots of world cultures have developed some variation on fermented grain and water. But the brews our distant forefathers drank were probably a lot different than the ones we drink now.

5000-year-old beer recipeWhile the ale that was enjoyed centuries before the birth of Julius Caesar may have been tastier than other beverage choices of the day, it was still incredibly sour, with a flavor closer to vinegar than Hefeweizen. That’s according to a team of University of Chicago archaeologists and brewers from the Great Lakes Brewing Company. Using a 5,000-year-old beer recipe outlined in “Hymn to Ninkasi,” an ode to the Sumerian goddess of beer, they brewed up a batch of era-appropriate beer. To help ensure authenticity, they even used recreations of ancient wooden tools and ceramic fermentation pots based on artifacts found in Iraq in the 1930s, malted the barley on a roof, and hired a baker in Cleveland to prepare the bappir (“beer bread”) they used as the source of their yeast. And they heated the beer during the brewing process the old fashioned way: over a manure-fueled fire.

No Whey? Yes Whey: The Truth About Greek Yogurt

The truth about greek yogurtA few years ago, a new product hit your grocer’s dairy case seemingly out of nowhere: Greek yogurt. It’s an extra-thick, extra-creamy, and protein-heavy version of. The main difference, besides the thick, almost cheesecake-like consistency: There’s very little liquid in a container. Popular brands include Yoplait and Chobani. And Ben and Jerry’s has a frozen version. How popular is Greek yogurt? In New York state alone, production at yogurt plants has tripled over the last five years to more than a billion pounds per year. Want to know the truth about Greek yogurt?

Doughnuts or Bacon? Why Decide? Happy National Donut Day!

Donut & Bacon Sandwich National Donut DayAre you the kind of person who grabs breakfast on the way to work? And do you hate having to agonize over which mostly-unhealthy choice to reach for—a donut or an egg-and-cheese sandwich? Well, here’s good news: Dunkin’ Donuts recently introduced the Bacon & Egg Donut Sandwich. That’s a fried egg patty and two slices of bacon…between two glazed doughnuts. It’s the national chain’s way of celebrating June 7, which is “National Donut Day.”

The new sandwich sounds like a gut-buster…but it’s actually not that bad. Glazed doughnuts pack less fat than thickly-frosted cake varieties; two of them, even with eggs and bacon inside, amount to only 360 calories. Meanwhile, Dunkin’ Donuts offers a breakfast sandwich made with eggs and turkey sausage, and that health-conscious item has 390 calories—30 more than the one made with two glazed doughnuts.

This isn’t the first time doughnuts have joined with bacon. Voodoo Doughnuts, a small chain based in Portland, Oregon, introduced the Bacon-Maple Bar in 2003—it’s a Long John (a bar-shaped doughnut), covered in maple frosting and topped with two pieces of crispy bacon. After it was featured on an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, the style caught on and can now be found at doughnut stores around the country.

Meat Cute? Meat Cuts Renamed

Meat Cuts
Why so sad, Mister Cow?

Meat is getting a makeover. Meat cuts are renamed to give them more marketing flair.

As the weather gets hotter and more and more Americans’ fancy turns to thoughts of grilling, the beef and pork industries are planning on some thick and juicy changes. They’re going to rename as many as 350 different cuts of meat.

This has nothing to do with the recent horsemeat scandals at European IKEA stores and Burger Kings. Rather, the industries want to promote their products with some marketing flair while at the same time eliminating confusion over the same cut of meat having multiple, often long and confusing names.

Norway is Out of Butter

No, that is not super-secret spy code language – Norway is really out of butter:

The soaring popularity of a fat-rich fad diet has depleted stocks of butter in Norway creating a looming Christmas culinary crisis.

Norwegians have eaten up the country’s entire stockpile of butter, partly as the result of a “low-carb” diet sweeping the Nordic nation which emphasizes a higher intake of fats.

Our guess is Norwegian farmers will milk this story for all it’s worth. They’ll spread it far and wide. Keep churning it out…

This story is made all the more ironic by the fact that Norway actually looks like a lump of butter that was dropped on the top of Finland and dripped down the back of Sweden: