My wife and daughter are away in Mexico and I’ve had three bowls of Cocoa Pebbles so far today. It’s a fine cereal but it can’t hold a candle to Rice Krinkles, a cereal that was discontinued sometime in my late teens, I think. Both are Post products, seemingly made from similar “molds,” but Rice Krinkles lacked the cocoa and had an addictive aftertaste I’ve grown to suspect in the intervening years was malt. Rice Krinkles are not to be confused with Rice Krispies or Frosted Rice Krispies (or Cocoa Pebbles with Cocoa Krispies), its inferior Kellogg’s counterparts. It’s like comparing Yodels to Ho-Hos: Yodels win.
A couple years ago, I wrote the Vermont Country Store, asking their vaunted discontinued products division if they could track down a box of Rice Krinkles. Maybe they were being manufactured and distributed in far away places all these years–with the original recipe and racist iconography still intact. I never heard back.
What’s your favorite childhood cereal?
What’s your favorite discontinued food product?
What’s your favorite discontinued childhood cereal?
Jack Silbert, curator