A Commonplace Breakfast

Duke University

Think of all the ordinary bowls, and unpuffed cereals - not to mention all the lazy no-good people like me - who take a look at this 1914 advertisement and say: yeah, they are coming down to Some Commonplace Breakfast! What about it?

Those kids are dressed for fancy puffed wheat or puffed rice, served in etched sundae glasses. They knew there was something better than cornflakes in a crockery bowl without a pedestal! Polished Mary Janes, little belted suits, Buster Brown hair and creepy smiles. This is how you greet fancy children, people. With thrillingly puffed cereal done in "Prof. Anderson's way."

And who might Professor Anderson be? Alexander P.* Anderson, who discovered in 1901 that when you heat up cornstarch, it explodes into puffed - um, cornstarch. He soon moved on to rice and wheat grains and things and popped them, too. And then he founded the Alexander Puffed Rice Company. His puffed grains were a huge hit at the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904; he shot them out of some guns, I don't know why, and puffed rice was henceforth known as "the food shot from guns." This would never convince me to eat something, but apparently it worked a treat, and puffed cereal became very popular. Anderson sold his patents to Quaker Oats, and the rest is (advertising) history. All so that Buster and his sister could flounce downstairs for some distinctly uncommon morning grub.

We actually like puffed wheat, and there is some in a plastic bag on the cereal shelf. But I don't pour it into fancy glasses. And no one wears patent leather Mary Janes around here. That's not a bad thing, I think.

*For Puffed, of course. Actually, his middle name was Pierce. But it should have been Puffed.