CYBERPUNK: The Ultimate Cereal Guide for Geeks

It's no accident that when post-cyberpunk sci-fi author Neal Stephenson went around the country last year doing a book tour for his now classic tome Cryptonomicon, the passage he often recited at readings was the multipage treatise on the best way to eat Cap'n Crunch.

Stephenson was doing more than just dispensing etiquette -- he was offering up to us geeks in the audience some shared experience. We all knew, even if we probably hadn't thought about it too much, why the alt.cereal FAQ calls cereal the "Gravel of the Gods." Stephenson reminded us that nothing delivers bursts of instant energy with such caloric efficiency better than sweetened cereal. Such gravel provides a quick jack for the hot-running, glucose-sucking brains of cerebral types everywhere. Just add milk.

Like any piece of pop culture, breakfast cereals have always written their own aesthetic narrative -- from Sugar Pops' pre-Warholian clean, bold overtones to the seemingly never-diminishing cult allure of Quisp (www.quisp.com). And while I don't claim a formal critical perspective on the field -- I like what I like -- I'd argue that, as with any other pop-cult consumable, qualitative distinctions can be made. So, with apologies to Robert Christgau, godhead of the letter-grade review, we present the Cyberpunk Cereal Consumer Guide:

Cap'n Crunch (Quaker Oats) Simply put, Cap'n Crunch is the Rolling Stones of sweetened cereals, the standard against which all others must be judged. The breakfast-cereal-connoisseur site Empty Bowl proclaims it the "champion of the nonchocolate cereals." In Cryptonomicon, Stephenson spends paragraphs lovingly doting over the physics of its pillowlike kernels. Simultaneously overpowering and sublime, Cap'n Crunch achieves a finely tuned complexity of texture with only a minimalistic treatment of its crisped-corn flour. (Empty Bowl nailed it precisely when it noted that the elusive taste the good Cap'n slyly hints at is none other than vanilla.) Under milk, it degrades gracefully. And if you can't wait that long, and the roof of your mouth is rubbed raw from the chewing of these crystallizations, well, that's the price you pay for tasting perfection. A+

Cookie Crisp (General Mills) Gotta give C-Crisp props for being the first to come out of the cupboard. Once upon a time, cereals strutted their sweetened natures freely. (Remember Sugar Crisp's chop-licking Sugar Bear?) Around the early '70s, though, the nutrition Nazis moved in, engendering an ugly climate in the industry that Bill Crawford, co-author of Cerealizing America: The Unsweetened Story of American Breakfast Cereal, labels "sugar de-emphasis." Sucrose-laden cereals were recast as "part of a nutritious breakfast." Cookie Crisp called BS on that jive. I remember when CC, with its brazenly undisguised cookie-likeness, first hit the shelves. There was no more hiding from self-deluded parents that this wake-up fortification their children craved wasn't of the nutritional sort. Still, nothing's staler than yesterday's revolutionaries. Not to be a sore tooth about it, but this cereal just doesn't work. Its chocolate flecks leave an almost cigarette-ash aftertaste; its corn-meal texture is so grainy that conspiracists could spot UFO images in it. Worst of all, its been upstaged by the younger Oreo O's -- their cereal's cookie emulations are far better executed. D

Count Chocula (General Mills) Like any subgenre, the hard-core chocolate cereals (Cocoa Pebbles, Cocoa Puffs, Cocoa Krispies) hammer away at their mission with relentless singularity. And no doubt the straight-edge types who prefer such uncut flavors probably feel that the leavening of Count Choc's dark pleasures with fruity marshmallows is a pandering to commercial interests -- the goth dude sold out. Myself, I dig medley. That's the trouble with purists: Their tastes are always too narrow. B+

Froot Loops (Kellogg's) Is there any surer sign that a cereal has reached culinary (and market) bankruptcy then when its creator resorts to injecting novelty "Cherryberry Swirls" into its otherwise formulaic loops? C-

Mueslix (Kellogg's) Deride me if you will for not keepin' it inside the stay-fresh pouch, but how can any self-respecting cereal critic ignore the disingenuous health-food symbolism littering the Mueslix box? Are people really fooled by the silhouette of the jogger or the wholesome raisins, nuts, and other healthy bits flying about? Maybe the kind who believe that this faux-Grape Nuts is good for you simply because whole barley is subbed for corn meal, because the brown sugar smothers the regular sugar, because the whole-oat shavings obscure the high-fructose corn syrup. Indeed, the very nutritional sophistication this chow supposedly endows on the saps who purchase it is betrayed by the fact that it carries a higher percentage of fat than most of its hallucinogenic-cartoon, mascot-sporting brethren. For gullible granola-crunching, Fresh Fields-shopping 120 IQs only. F

Reese's Puffs (General Mills) Literalists beware: These pellets no more resemble Reese's Peanut Butter Cups than Lucky Charms resemble Celtic talismans. But are abstract signifiers of trademarked candies a crime? Perhaps not. These puffs certainly slide down the gullet agreeably enough. The trouble starts when determined formalists claim to tell the difference between the blackish "chocolate" balls and the brownish "peanut butter" ones. I say they're sensing ghosts in the whitewash of milk. Though pleasant, such illusion is a pale replacement for honest-to-goodness distinction. B-