Lion Bar Cereal - The Lion Preserves its Pride

The Lion Bar is a chocolate bar that I’m sure you are all familiar with.  A medley of wafer, caramel and biscuit, with the gaps filled in by chocolate.  It was previously a product of Rowntrees, and used to be good, until Nestlé bought it and made it shitty and cheap tasting.  I’m not a standard bearer of the Rowntrees Army or anything, I actually like Nestlé products (although I’m sure they’re evil because they give poor people AIDS, or don’t pay their taxes, or something), I just remember a time when the Lion Bar was a powerhouse in the UK confectionary market.  The drop in the chocolate bar’s reputation came about after Nestlé bought it over.  That is all I am saying. 

No wonder it has taken me this long to finally pick up a box of Lion Bar Cereal then.  A once potent nemesis of candy bar stalwarts such as the Aero or the Double Decker – although it was never up there in popularity with your Snickers and Mars bars – trying to get its name and label back out there through the breakfast cereal market.  I’d like to say this has happened before, but I honestly cannot think of any other sweeties that have become breakfast cereals.  Can anyone help a cereal-brother out?  I digress.  So.  This perhaps seemed a bit desperate to me.  Moreover, because almost every type of breakfast cereal that works has already entered the market and habitually these new, wacky concepts are thoroughly shit (strawberry grahams, anyone?).  Tony the Tiger said, in his key-note speech at last year’s cereal AGM: “When desperation mantles a falling brand, they feel the need to innovate and elaborate; always looking forward, blinkered to what they already have and short-sighted to what lays in their future.  Indeed, the single greatest commodity known to man is the ability to stay calm and patient.  Why would one move forward into the dark crypts of uncertainty, when they already reside in paradise?  Of course, this is Man’s greatest weakness: the need to develop and grow no matter how big you have become.  This is more popularly known as greed.  This too is why Frosties is as successful a brand as it is: I am a tiger and will not be affixed by the greed that befalls mankind.”  Somewhat cryptic, I know, but I once felt the Lion Bar Lion could take heed of his feline contemporary’s words.  It is why, whenever people see Lion Bar cereal on the shelves, they ask themselves: “Why, Nestlé?  Why?”    As it turns out, I am glad I took a chance on them.

I forgot to set up a link in the preamble to include a picture, so here is a picture of the box.  A picture that inconventiantly reveals that it is actually called Lion Cereals and not Lion Bar Cereal, highlighting my laziness in that I could not be arsed going back and changing the name in my article, but conversely showing off my impressive ability to avoid mistakes when writing as I proof read nothing.  PROFESSIONALISM.

Taste

"Multigrain" (as in, wedon'treallyknowwhatgrain) bites; one part chocolate flavoured, one part caramel flavoured.  Its the caramel part that distinguish this cereal.  The two flavours compliment each other very well.  They don't recreate the taste of a Lion Bar, but I don't think they really aim to.  A finely concocted je ne sais pas.  Very sweet (which is good in a breakfast cereal in my eyes). 

8.5/10


Milk Flavour

This segment is becoming somewhat one dimensional.  I tend to favour cereals that yield a chocolatey milk, and indeed chocolate cereals in general, but this has a strong caramel note to it that adds something to the chocolatey loveliness.  

8/10

Texture

They score 4 on the DCSI, as a cereal of this nature should.  A fine crunchiness throughout, give this cereal extra points.  They are excellent as a snack, sans milk, also.  Nice crispy little biscuits.  Good texture.

9/10

Packaging

Brown and unappealing.  The lion's head makes tham stand out, but generally a fairly dour looking box.  The lion seems a bit out of place somehow.  Where the fuck is his body actually?  The more I look at that picture (above) the more it sort of freaks me out.  What a weird looking lion.  Again, a bit too small for my liking also.

3/10

Relevance of Mascot

A no brainer, it may seem, but what do chocolate and caramel have in common with a lion?  I guess lions are kind of caramel in colour, and their main is darker, kind of like the contrast between chocolate and caramel.  

7/10

Potential

The taste of a caramel doesn't go terribly well with most things, believe it or not.  I mixed it with some Golden Grahams at the end of the box (there wasn't enough left for a full bowl of cereal) and it really didn't work.  You can eat them on their own however, which is a bonus.

5/10.

Overall

A very pleasant surprise.  I was not expecting to like this cereal as much as I did, but it really works.  They've not tried to do anything too wacky and innovative and stuck to what works, and it really has.  Poor packaging lets it down, but still a good score overall.  

8.5/10

To the Latent Coco Shreddies Thieves of Planet Earth

Anyone who knows me well, or have at any point woken me from a deep slumber, will be well versed with the terror that I go through every night in my sleep.  My night terrors can manifest themselves in various ways, be it acts of violence, incontinence or dehydrating night sweats.  Imagine my horror last night when I was roused by a horrifying dream of cereal robbery, and not just any old cereal; my favourite cereal ever. 

Coco Shreddies. 

I went to sleep last night, already fantasizing about my morning bowl – which surely led to such a horrific dream – and willing myself to get to sleep sooner in order to wake up to my favourite cereal (sort of like going to sleep on Christmas Eve, but way more exciting).  Anyway, the nightmare included a hooded figure breaking into my flat and raiding my kitchen.  I could smell the wretched sweat emanating from the vile bandit as they greedily rifled through my various foodstuffs - in search of my dear Coco Shreddies - knocking aside bags of pasta and various boxes of inferior cereals.  Finally, they got their hands on the desired box, which I will admit they must love as much as I.  As the robber gawked at the front of the box, voraciously licking their lips, I tumbled backwards over a box of unreturned video tapes, alerting them to my presence.  The last thing I remember before waking was the robber slowly looking up, exposing their true identity as Linda Kozlowski, co-star of 80s picture: Crocodile Dundee. 

The dream was quite horrific and after I abruptly awoke I immediately rushed through to my kitchen, admittedly hesitant from the fear that she was conspiring with Crocodile Dundee co-star – and real life husband – Paul Hogan, who may have planted traps to slow me down.  Finding my kitchen empty, I checked my cupboard anyway, and there they were: my Coco Shreddies.

The ordeal was somewhat overwhelming, which leads me to the point of this article.  I have written a poem that I plan to pin to my pantry door to ward off any would be cereal thieves.  It is called To the Latent Coco Shreddies Thieves of Planet Earth (be they 80s movies tars or other wise).  I hope you enjoy it.

Woe betide the one who would take
My Coco Shreddies before the fast I break.

Who’d steal away, from behind my back

My daybreak ritual; my morning snack

I have some money, so take it first.

I have some wine, it could quench your thirst?
But if I wake sans wheat and malt,
My desperation would be all your fault.

So you will be the one to decide

If the Shreddies Thieves you will preside.
What band of scallywags would raid and steal,
From my pantry shelves, my cereal. 

To the would be raider:

I tell you, I’ll punch
The teeth from your mouth
If you steal my munch
They will fall to the ground
In a perfect bunch
‘Cause Shreddies keep hunger
Locked up ‘til lunch

Dallas' Cereal Structural Index

I keep making promises that I can’t keep.  Here is the content I said I’d put up two days ago.  Some more food (breakfast cereal, obvs) for thought. 

Over the coming months I will try and be more quantitative with my blogging.  While verbal descriptions are sufficient for most, I like to categorise things my number (I like to organise my sock drawer from 1-5, from left to right, 5 being wank socks and 1 being my favourite socks), which is how the DCSI was conceived.  I feel it may be incomplete, and that there may be grey areas within the categories, so please let me know if there are.  I welcome any suggestions. 

So, put simply: the DCSI is a descriptive index for categorising cereal textures.  Too often have I bought a granola or “muesli” that has been too hard for my liking, or a new brand of cereal that turns soft and mushy in under 3.5 minutes of milk contact.  It is a fairly rudimentary index, but I feel it will be useful all the same.  I can picture readers sitting down to their bowl of breakfast cereal and thinking “I reckon this is a 5”, much like I do these days. 

 

I had created an pretty table on excel, that was colour coded and everything, but I can't work out a way to put it up on here in a format that is visible (I can't enter it as a picture) therefore, I will simply list the categories in as organised a manner as I can manage in absence of a table.  Categories are numbered 1-7 and hold the following upshots:

 

1. Unyielding, remains hard until end of bowl.  Example: granola

 

2. Partly softens but contains unyielding ingredients.  Example: Dorset Cereal

 

3. Stay reasonably hard/crunchy but loses some structural integrity.  Example: Jordan's Country Crisp (The Supercilious Cereal).

 

4. Become soft but generally retain a hard core or considerable toughness.  Example: Golden Nuggets (Fools gold?) ***Level 4 also contains level 5s that are subject to the Cereal Killer Coating Hypothesis. 

 

5. Crunchy/tough at the beginning of bowl; soggy by the end.  Eat at normal pace.  Example: Shreddies

 

6. Becomes soft quickly.  Eat with haste.  Example: Weetabix. 

 

7. Breakfast cereals served hot and soggy.  Example: hot Weetabix/Porridge

 

So there we have it: DCSI.  I hope you find this a useful tool as you begin to realise the importance of texture on a breakfast cereal experience, and I hope to usefully utilise it in my future reviews (there are some on the way, I promise). 

The Cereal Killer Coating Hypothesis

I would like to introduce this hypothesis as a precursor to my upcoming Dallas’ Cereal Structural Index (hereon known as DCSI).  A simple hypothesis that one would utilise to explain the key structural differences between normal cereals and there coated alternatives.  For instance: Corn Flakes and Frosties, Shreddies and Coco/Frosted/Honey Shreddies, Rice Krispies and Ricicles.  You get the idea.

The hypothesis states that:

A cereal that is coated in sugar, chocolate – or otherwise – will retain its crunchiness and/or structural integrity longer than its uncoated counterpart.

I feel the finest breakfast cereals available are a coated twist on and old classic, and this is often because of the consequential effect of the coating on the cereal’s texture.  If you don’t believe me, pour yourself two bowls of cereal; one of plain Shreddies and one of Coco Shreddies.  Add equal amounts of milk, submerging the cereal, and leave for 5 minutes.  When you come back to them you will find a bowl of nigh on mush in the plain Shreddies bowl and a nicely softened, but still intact, bowl of Coco Shreddies.  This is also why I get upset when people say things like: “Hey, Dallas: why not just buy plain Shreddies and add your own sugar, instead of buying the more expensive Frosted Shreddies?”  Are you wrong in the head, mate?  It’s not the same thing, and it is all down to the Cereal Killer Coating Hypothesis. 

This idea will come into its own when I cover the DCSI in my next article.  Thanks for reading and I hope you find this helpful.