Breakfast Time

Like me, Spain came to the world of cold cereal late in the game. While I was growing up, it was a rare treat to have cold cereal from a box and with ten to twelve children trying to get their share it didn't last very long when we did. I suspect my parents would have gone broke had they tried to feed us prepared breakfast cereals, and certainly our trips to the dentist would be more frequent and likely more expensive. Instead, I become accustomed to a morning diet of oatmeal, cream of wheat or pancakes.

If I could go back in time I would do it all again. I was really happy when my mom made oatmeal because she made a few servings extra, which is not an easy task with all of those mouths to feed. I would enjoy my bowl in the morning but I discovered that I liked the dish even better as a leftover after school. Instead of eating it in a bowl with milk, I would fry the cooled mush in butter and sprinkle it with brown sugar; a delicious comfort food if ever there was one.

Cream of wheat excelled in being a breakfast food that could keep even a young boy with a high metabolism satisfied for hours. I liked the nutty and earthy flavors and the squishy feeling of each spoonful. It was like eating warm ice cream and it seemed to melt down your throat. Because it was so soft going down but kept my hunger at bay for hours, I'm pretty sure that it actually turns to cement while in the stomach and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that I still had a little in the belly.

I'll always remember my mom's pancakes. Newton pancakes are unique because we almost never covered them with syrup. My mother would preserve 100s of bottles of peaches, and pears and apricots. Long before there was a Blendtec, we would puree the fruit and pour that over the freshly cooked pancakes. To this day, I usually avoid pancakes and waffles unless there are real fruit toppings.

When I arrived to the Iberian Peninsula, I wasn't expecting a regular diet of cold cereals, but when you are pressed for time in the mornings it is about the easiest meal to prepare, since there really is no preparation. Since Spain did not grow up with Kellogs, apparently its people didn't understand how to eat cereal from a box. The first boxes of cereal that I purchased in late 1985 in Madrid had step-by-step illustrations on how to eat the product. The first panel showed a box of cereal next to an empty bowl. The next image depicted the cereal being poured into the bowl. The third drawing showed milk being poured into the bowl. The final sketch illustrated a boy using a spoon to eat the cereal.

I was relieved to discover that I had been doing it right all along.