When it comes to breakfast, you have your staples. There are your basic eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, french toast, waffles, pancakes, cereal, etc. Some items you can get away with at breakfast time, others you can't.
Growing up, I always envied kids that could eat cereals like Fruity Pepples or Cocoa Pebbles. I would see the commercials with Fred Flintstone about to kick Barney Rubbles ass for stealing Fred's pepples and immediately I would think that would be good to eat. For some reason, I was never allowed to get these cereals. Was it some vendetta my parents had against Hanna Barbera for commecializing their most famous characters? Was my Mom still in shock over Wilma being the first pregnant cartoon character on TV? Who knows. The party line at my house was that it was too expensive, which I've come to realize now is a complete load of crap.
I shop. I compare prices. It's one of the cheapest freaking cereals in the cereal aisle! Mom has some explaining to do.
So we were limited to the basics on cereal: Rice Krispies, Captain Crunch, Sugar Frosted Flakes, Wheaties and Life. Wheaties were fine if you put a shitload of sugar on them. Life, on the other hand, was only good if you put a shitload of sugar on it AND ate it really fast since it seemed to go soggy within 30 seconds, which rendered it gross to eat. We rarely ate stuff like Pop-Tarts, but I wasn't really that much of a fan of them. Maybe it was because we were limited to flavors like Strawberry, which I didn't much care for.
Fast forward 25 years and the breakfast fare hasn't changed much for cereals. You still have your cereals based on the cartoon character of the month. You still have the selections of healthy cereals like Shredded Wheat which tastes like shit no matter how much sugar you pour on it! You still have the old favorites like Cap n Crunch, Fruity Pebbles, Honeycomb, but there are more variations of them, not that I'm jealous. I still prefer the originals.
Pop-Tarts on the other hand have gone through a sort of whacky transition that one can only guess that the flavors are thought up by a bunch of guys getting drunk, stoned or both the night before and wake up at noon to come up with ideas. I thought Pop-Tarts was getting a little edgy when they introduced a Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tart. Then came such gems like Frosted Smores, Frosted Chocolate Chip, Frosted Caramel and Chocolate, French Toast and my new favorite, Frosted Cinnamon Roll. Maybe that's why they have the slogan "Crazy Good" now.
I was strolling the cereal aisle a few weeks ago when I came across this:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pop-Tarts. That's right. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough that is normally cold and used to make Chocolate Cookies. The stuff normally rolled into balls that you used to sneak off of your Dad's kitchen counter when he was out of the room because he'd yell at you for not eating the ones baked in the oven. That stuff. In a Pop-tart.
Maybe I had a sugar rush high that told me to grab it, but for some reason, it sounded really good. Laura made a face, but I grabbed it anyway.
The next morning I grabbed the box, unwrapped the Pop-tarts and popped them in the toaster. I plopped them on a plate and sat down in front of the tv for what promised to be a unique and delicious experience. I took a bite and then another. Then I took bites less frequently. It wasn't long before my hope of a blissful breakfast experience had turned to hell faster than Honeybunny yelling "Any of you pigs f&*king move and I'll execute every last one of you motherf*&*kers!" in the coffeeshop scene in Pulp Fiction. The problem is this. The mind remembers how good chocolate chip cookie dough is, but you don't eat it hot, you eat it cold. Quickly, the Pop-tarts start tasting like sweetened glue stuck in a pastry. I could only eat one. I stuck the rest in the freezer and they do taste okay frozen, but not by much. It's safe to say whoever did the market research for this product picked kids that had no tastebuds. Or they bribed them with better Pop-Tarts.
Should it surprise you that there are several other disgusting sounding flavors ready to be tasted? Let's see the hitlist.
There's Strawberry Milkshake. Aww... isn't that nice. We have the cold fuzzy feeling of an ice cold strawberry milkshake in a tall glass all stuff down in a crusty pastry all set for a warm up in your toaster. The only product with milk in its name and isn't cold that actually tastes good has to be milk chocolate. Any other attempts, and I'm mainly referring to those horrific cereal bars with milk in the center, all make the milk taste like sweetened paste. I can only assume this holds true.
There's Frosted Cookies and Cream, which actually might work, but the Frosted Hot Fudge Sundae sound just as bad as the Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tart. Memo to Pop-Tart guys. Keep the hot stuff hot. Keep the cold stuff cold. Let's put a McDLT spin on this one guys.
2 comments:
Your mistake was in heating the Pop Tarts. Never heat Pop Tarts. For one thing, as you've discovered, they're gross when they're hot. Perhaps more importantly, they're freaking dangerous.
Besides, Hy-Vee store brand toaster pastries beat the crap out of Pop Tarts every day of the week. I highly recommend the frosted brown sugar cinnamon variety.
But don't put them in the toaster!
I'd stick to the bacon and eggs. You're a diabetic waiting to happen.
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