Mini-Poll: BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

It's widely accepted that sugary cereal is the king of Saturday Morning Breakfast, sure... and we'll be getting to a poll about your favorite 80's Breakfast Cereal somewhere down the line... but not everybody ate cereal! For instance my friend, Greg, always had two toaster waffles with raisins in the holes. Kevin had Pop Tarts. And Amber had Hippie Parents so she always had either Granola or an actual "Well Balanced Breakfast" (I loved getting to sleep over at Amber's house). And even I myself was known to have an English Muffin with cheese on top every once in a while :) So this has got me thinking... Cereal has always been considered king, but what if it's actually something else?

Let's make this official. Let's use SCIENCE and DATA to determine once and for all what the KING of Saturday Morning Breakfasts should actually be shall we? Vote for whatever you actually at at breakfast, check all that apply and if I've missed anything feel free to mention it in the comments :)

[Poll #1766782]

Comments

[sanctaphrax.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Pop-tarts, Eggos, or sugary cereal - Lucky Charms, Golden Grahams, Cap'n Crunch - with ice-cold milk. 8D Donuts were a favorite for Saturday morning, too. Like, those Entenmann's Devil's Food Crumb Donuts. This poll is bringing back the memories and making me hungry.

I still think cereal wins, because you got a prize with your sugar rush.

[aurora77]

Oooh, a strawberry poptart with cream cheese sounds really good.

Gonna be a while before I eat anything like that, though. At 1300 Calories a day, it's hard to fit in something like that. *sadpanda*

[aurora77]

Oh hells yeah!

I still remember digging out that little packet of cloudy plastic and ripping it open for my prize... Sometimes disappointed, sometimes delighted. I can hardly remember any of the prizes anymore, but I do remember how fun it was to dig them out, and how my mom would scold me for reaching my entire arm into the cereal box. XD

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

I can't remember... did they have Alpha-Bits all the way down here in the regular States, or was that something I had to go closer to the Canadian boarder for? Because the best prize i ever got was a record that came on the back of an Alpha-Bits box (had to cut it out).

[igniprimum.livejournal.com]

Saturday morning breakfast was usually

-a bowl of white rice with milk, sugar, and cinnamon,

sometimes with

-oven-warmed saltines with margarine,
or
-a burner-warmed white flour tortilla with margarine,

which my mother referred to as "buttered crackers" or "buttered tortillas" respectively.

In my house Velveeta WAS cheese, and margarine WAS butter. I think I must have been 8 or 9 before I realized that butter or cheese actually existed in their true forms, and that discovery was made at a friends' house.

On the other hand, my mother did have good taste in peanut butter, as it was generally Adam's all the way through my childhood, spread liberally on the occasional Saturday breakfast of Krusteaz pancakes with sausage, bacon, and Mrs. Butterworth's.

Cold cereals with milk were also eaten, but usually only on weekday mornings when our mother was too busy to cook, or a couple hours after breakfast to hold over until lunch.

My brother and I were pretty lucky with food, as my father was an avid fisher, hunter, and gardener, my mother was way into baking and preserving, and they both were big on cooking. Coming from a farm family, my dad had lots of contacts in the meat, poultry, and dairy industry, so what we couldn't grow at home or kill in the wilds, we could get fresh from the farm, ranch, dairy, or warehouse, usually at a crazy discount. Grocery stores were mostly unknown to us, and our concept of a normal meal usually revolved around what we knew was ready to hand in our huge meat freezer, our bomb shelter full of canned goods and homemade preserves, our garden full of fresh vegetables, or our apple, cherry, and apricot trees when in season.

Tupperware. Almost forgot about the Tupperware. Until I was well into my adolescence, it seems damn near everything we ate was served in or eaten out of Tupperware, or promotional items from restaurants and convenience stores.

I think my mother still has the Coca-Cola/Godfather's Pizza drink pitcher we got in, like, 1981 or so. The glasses to complete the set met their fates one by one over the years, the last of the four possibly making it to the 1990s, but one cannot be sure. As for the pitcher, we drank Coca-Cola out of it at times, but it was mainly used for sun tea.

Why is this relevant to Saturday morning cartoons? Because when we watched our favorite shows, we were well fed, and at least in terms of being fed, we felt secure and cozy, and that enhanced our viewing enjoyment.

Despite this, we were often jealous of other kids for having all the fancy junk food that we never got to have, but looking back on it, I'm kind of glad we didn't get to have it. It's probably the main reason I made it through my childhood mostly getting three squares a day and not getting fat like most of the rest of my friends.

[happyshopchina.livejournal.com]

prefer Granola or other Healthy Cereal

[kaitydid33087.livejournal.com]

IKR? They're my favorite thing ever. He still does on occasion. :)

[kaitydid33087.livejournal.com]

Yeah. We had Alpha-Bits. I think they're still around down here.

[harmonybear.livejournal.com]

My dad always made eggs - during the week it was cereal or toast as he was always off to work before my breakfast. He's a chef by trade and weekends were his create for the family days. Now I'm living on my own I've given up trying to poach my eggs to perfection and just fry them ... and have them for dinner. Saturday morning breakfast's have now turned into cold pizza :-P

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

OMFSM me too! I grew up on a farm some 12 miles away from the nearest "town" (2 grocery stores, 6 churches, 17 bars and 2 fish processing canneries). My dad wasn't a hunter, but he WAS a foreman at one of the canneries so he was able to trade salmon and whatnot to the other lo0cal hunters. Gold-N-Soft Margerine in the yellow tubs were our tupperware... it came full of margerine and then became a handy cereal bowl afterwards!

I have an extensive collection of 1980's "Collect All Six" glassware now that I'm an adult... everything just tastes better that way :)c

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Oh sure you PREFER the granola, but what did you actually eat?

[bluedragonhawk.livejournal.com]

My breakfast was usually cereal, corn pops or apple jacks, and sometimes yummy toaster strudel! ^_^

[aurora77]

Alpha-Bits were definitely available. I bought them in California.

I got a record off a cereal box, too! It was a great prize! I want to say it was an Archies song. Sugar Sugar probably?

[aurora77]

Oooh, Apple Jacks! Another one of my favorites.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, you lived in one of those FANCERY households what thoought they was too good fer Pop Tarts! Thinkin' yer all high-n-mighty with yer expensive Toaster Strudels, and yer book larnin', and yer fancery IN-door flush toilets :P

I envied the kids who got the Toaster Strudel n TV... never actually knew anyone who got to eat them growing up :)

[bookishwench.livejournal.com]

Saturday morning always used to be cinnamin roll day! They were the ones that came in the cardboard tube in the refrigerator section, and I used to ice them with the little plastic tub of frosting they'd stick in the end of the tube. Man, that smell WAS Saturday mornings!

[sanctaphrax.livejournal.com]

The biggest prize I remember was the Batman bank from the 1989 Batman cereal. I still have it.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

That is SO COOL! My parents would NEVER have trusted me with such a responsibility, or bothered to wake up early enough to do this with me. Either way, your Saturday Morning tradition ROCKS!

[lu-ludicrous.livejournal.com]

Thankfully, yes! I love soymilk and all it has allowed me to enjoy. xD

Though some of the cereal is still too overwhelming for me. Sugar Crisps ar ejust a bit too sugary for my tastes.

The Family Farm

[igniprimum.livejournal.com]

Don't want to drift too far off the subject of the Saturday shows, but...

I didn't grow up on a farm (we lived in a white-trash "suburb" of Kennewick, WA, a town of about 40,000 at the time, still to this day no more than 50,000,) but my father ran our house pretty much like it was one.

But yeah, most of our meat and whatever vegetables we couldn't get from our own garden came from trade and labor with friends and family in the industries.

Also, in addition to the Tupperware, the collectible stuff was key to the aesthetic of our household. Some of it, like the Coca Cola/Godfather's pitcher and glasses set, was actually kind of classy for folks like us. The rest of it was total trashy kitsch or just straight up trashy (like the several different series of 'collect them all' Big Gulp cups from 7-Eleven).

In between, we had a few items collected by mail with the aid of a few UPC symbols cut from boxes or labels. One that comes to mind is a Campbell's Soup bowl in the color scheme with logo.

From 1980-82 I successfully managed to only eat Campbell's soup from that bowl, and to prevent others in the house from touching it.

In Summer '82, my sister and her boyfriend came visiting from college, and he ate Super Sugar Crisp from my Campbell's Soup bowl, which threw me into a small rage, and gave them razz material to level against me for the rest of my childhood.

Strangely enough, we didn't use tub margarine until after my parents divorced and my father moved out. We used Imperial in cube form. I think it was because they used it for cooking and baking as much as for a condiment, and preferred to cut to measure instead of getting the measuring spoons all greasy. Our plastic tubs were mostly cottage cheese containers.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Then I won't even ask you for your opinion of Cap'n Crunch :)

I was lactose intolerant, too, but it went completely undiagnosed till I turned *30*! I was a very farty child :)

Re: The Family Farm

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

I am well associated with Kennewick, I feel your pain... I'm in Bothell and the other Mod of this community is in... I want to say Lakewood? This community was originally founded to try and round up a bunch of locals to do a live watch-along at a local hotel or something... you still in the area? If so I'll have to insist that you bring your fam to this event once we get the physical (non-virtual) version going :)

Re: I have to add...

[beagle1.livejournal.com]

Oh man I remember morning like that too. :P

Oh and here is a random breakfast thought - I think I was an odd child, I LOVED the plain un-iced Strawberry and Blueberry pop-tarts. (all my friends like the chocolate, and iced ones) Those are still my favorites to this day.

Re: The Family Farm

[igniprimum.livejournal.com]

I am well associated with Bothell and Lakewood, though moreso with Seattle. Lived there off and on in the early 1990s (and commuted to Bothell and Lakewood both for short employment stints in their respective office block wastes) before going to WSU in Pullman, then eventually moving to Portland OR.

I've been in China now for about four years, but have been trying to get up the habit of flying back during the summers. Made it last time, missed it this time.

I'm thinking next summer I'll try to be in 3C for the hydroplanes (last week of July,) and of course that will mean seeing friends in PDX and SEA either the week before or the week after.

[allronix1.livejournal.com]

This morning was brown rice, milk, and fruit.