I Remember This Tasting Better.

We all have food memories from growing up. Hopefully they are, for the most part, happy memories.

Liver……YUCK!

But I digress.

Cap’n Crunch was one of those shining childhood memories. It was a REALLY good day when I got to have Cap’n Crunch for breakfast. It happened so seldom that it seemed like the angels sang when there was a box of it in the pantry and we could actually have some.

Mimi wasn’t too keen on it. It wasn’t whole wheat. It had a lot of sugar (boy howdy did it!). It wasn’t oatmeal made with love.

Therefore it was the gold standard of boxed cereals in my opinion.

And I hadn’t had it in a LONG time. A long, long, long time. In fact, I am not sure that I ever bought a box of it when the progeny were growing up. It wasn’t whole wheat. It had lots of sugar in it. It wasn’t oatmeal made with love.

Wow, I have become my mother.

But then last week, out of the blue, HHBL says….

Can you get a box of Cap’n Crunch when you go shopping?

The cereal Cap’n Crunch?

Yeah, that stuff. I haven’t had any for a long time. It just sounds good.

And it did. Oh it did. Sticky sweet little pillows of goodness covered in milk.

So on Monday I went to the grocery store armed with my usual list and coupons. I quietly sneaked into the cereal aisle hoping no one would notice. We haven’t bought boxed cereal for a long time. We just don’t eat it. And if someone who knows that we don’t eat this stuff, that we try to eat healthy, saw me putting a box of Cap’n Crunch in my cart I am not sure how I would explain it.

Probably blame HHBL the big bad cereal corporations that put the box right at eye level.

I looked left and right and quietly slipped the box into the cart, under the flour and sugar and all other “natural” ingredients that I use to cook from scratch. No one would know because I usually go through the self- check out line. Why can’t Cap’n Crunch come in a plain brown wrapper like all other things you know you shouldn’t buy. No one would then be any wiser about my poor food choice.

I brought the box home and stuffed it onto the pantry shelf. I sort of felt that I had broken some unwritten food commitment and that Michael Pollan would soon be knocking at my door to read me the “Food Rules”.

This is what I had for breakfast this morning. Just a small bowl mind you cuz I made the mistake of looking at the nutritional facts on the side of the box.

I try NEVER to look at these. No good comes from it.

But…….

For some reason my childhood taste bud memories failed me.

Oh it was sweet alright. Sticky, sticky sweet. And yes, it still sticks to your teeth when you chew it.

But it just didn’t taste good. Too sweet. Too processed. Too much of an odd corn aftertaste.

Sigh.

Some childhood food memories should just stay in childhood where they can glow like shining beacons of happiness.

And I have no clue what we are going to do with the rest of this box cuz HHBL felt the same way about the cereal.

Darn it.