The Traditional Middle America

Aaah! Normal!

There are a number of definitions of where the middle of the USA actually is. One of the more widely used ones is the geographical centre – the place where, if you placed a rigid (uniformly thick) map of the USA, the country would balance on a point. Assuming that you don’t include Alaska and Hawaii (which is not unreasonable as they aren’t attached to the rest of the country so the experiment would be silly), this is somewhere near Lebanon, Kansas.

Another of the widely used definitions is the mean centre of population. This assumes that every person in the US is of equal size and weight and are standing on our rigid map (which now weighsnothing). This is, of course, a daft thought experiment because anyone who’s visited the US knows that Americans aren’t uniform size and weight. But assuming that the people in Nebraska are the same weight as the people in New York, this middle of America is near Plato, Missouri. I absolutely love this map - it tells so much with how the middle has moved since 1790 – showing the Louisiana purchase, showing the growth of the industrial north as it pulls towards Chicago and Detroit, showing the growth of California since 1900, and Texas and the south since 1950 along with the decline of the the rust belt.

We were pretty much half-way between these two middles of America, in Lawrence, Kansas, last week. I was still suffering the ill effects of eating the Froot Loops and needed something tamer, safer, less sugary, less out of control.

One of the really traditional US cereals is (or do I mean “are”?) Cheerios. These have the same form as the Froot Loops, little crunchy donuts, but are the colour of real food, and have been an American staple since long before I first came to America. When I ask normal people what their favourite cereal is Cheerios (or one of their offspring, like Honey-Nut Cheerios) tend to be the most common answer. They are very “Middle America”.

A bowl of perfectly normal food. Wow.

These were the first oat based processed cereal ever made, and are a proper cultural icon: all the way from Charlie Brown being their mascot to Sue Sylvester’s cheerleading team on Glee being called The Cheerios.  Everyone knows what they are, and they’re held in high esteem across the board. Not everyone loves them, but they are respected. A bit like Weetabix in the UK, I guess.

Beth tells me that they’re the snack food for young children in this country: that you can’t find a stroller or the backseat of a minivan without Cheerios stuck to it.

I pretty much knew what I was expecting here – which is the reason I went for them – a taste of actual cereal, crunchy, filling, not too much sugar. Something safe.

Unsurprisingly, I was mostly right, given that I’d eaten Cheerios before. They are good. Really very good. They taste of oats, they’re crunchy, and they’re pretty delicious. It’s a full flavour, with just a little nuttiness.

The only other thing of note was that they’re just not sweet enough for me these days. People eat Cheerios unsweetened which is just a little too cardboardy for my tastes – I had to add a little sugar, and they became properly delicious and simple. I’m expecting some of the derivatives to be up amongst my favourite things on my quest. This is actually good breakfast cereal.

Scoring:

Culinary Integrity – 9. They are actually real food. Nice, high quality and tasty. Tasting of real ingredients.

Pleasure to eat - 7. Not only are they real food, but pretty good to eat. There isn’t anything actually exciting here. Fairly mundane. But good.

Bonkers Americanness – 2. Despite being basically an American staple, they just aren’t at all mad. There’s no insanity at all.