Uncle John's Notes, Part 2

Part 2 of Uncle John's guest post, in which frugality is the mother of (muesli) invention....

"I don’t know quite how it happened, but it’s true that I had been known for gluing my Cheerios together with the baby cereal Pablim (from the Latin “pabulum,” meaning foodstuff – just ask Aunt Janie!), so I wouldn’t have to fish around the bowl for the last few Cheerios floating around on the milk. I probably like the taste too! Seemed a good idea to me! Worked good for me! Don’t know why nobody else ever seemed to like it!

So, what to do about that expensive Familia? Well, if nobody liked me mixing Pablim with my Cheerios, how about if I matured my breakfast formula and took it upscale with some fancy gourmet Familia? Toss out the Pablim and IN with the Familia! And keep the Cheerios, of course.

Guess what! I sold it! My parents bought it! Extend the Familia by mixing it and stretching it with Cheerios! You know, kind of like a Hamburger Helper, but for breakfast cereal!
Cool! So here is:

Muesli Recipe #2:
Familia and Cheerios! With milk. And raisins. Quick, easy, and simple. Layer of Cheerios, thin layer of Familia, another layer of Cheerios, and then some raisins to top it off. Add milk, let is sit a couple of minutes while pouring a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice. Then stir lightly and enjoy!

Finally, Mom knew I wouldn’t be eating Cheerios and Pablim all the way through high school! Wow, was she ever happy! That’s a nice thing about Moms: they can be so happy over even those little things!

So anyway, my Dad’s comment about all that grain being shipped to Switzerland and back still stayed with me. Not that it really worried me or anything, but it was always there lurking in the back of my mind.

By the time I got out of the Navy and started graduate school, there I was trying to live off the GI Bill and go to school. Aunt Max and I didn’t have much money, so we got part-time jobs and worked our way through school. Watching all our pennies while we studied. And guess what? NO budget for fancy Familia. Just plain Cheerios. After all, a married guy just isn’t allowed to mix Pablim in his Cheerios, you know. Tough times.

Oh, but thank goodness for hippies and health food! We stumbled onto a health food store in Boulder, Colorado, that had big barrels of various grains for sale at reasonable prices. So I tried my hand at making my own muesli from scratch. I tried and tried and tried, but I never got close to Familia. Yeah, I know, I left out the sugar and, of course the pricey stuff like almonds and honey. But nobody else had to eat my mix (nobody would eat it!), so I was free to continue the experiment for years, even though true success successfully eluded my efforts.

Muesli Recipe #3:
Make your own muesli from scratch! Check the labels of products like Familia and any other cereal mixes you like. See also products listed below. You’ll make better progress than I ever did if you skip all my weird experiments in Boulder. I can’t remember what was in ‘em anyway, so you’re saved!

Anyway, years and year later, here we are in the backwaters of New Jersey, just a block away from the Great Swamp, and guess what I see turn up in our little local grocery store?

Made-in- … ah, err, … Oops! Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself! Some other stuff turned up before the big one …"

Check back tomorrow for the conclusion!

Notes from Uncle John - Muesli Recipe #1

We recently received these "Notes From Uncle John, A Life-Long Breakfast Quest" and had to share - be warned, you'll have to check back for the subsequent chapters and recipes!

"Hi, Talia!
As you may have heard from your Mom and GrandMom, I haven’t been nearly as creative about breakfast as you all! Yes, it’s true, I’ve been eating Cheerios for breakfast for years and years and years – practically since the day I was born. Well, perhaps only since I was 5 or so. But that was a while ago.

But it hasn’t been just Cheerios. I don’t remember how it happened, maybe my parents took us to some fancy restaurant (like the Lincoln Hotel?) for a holiday brunch, or we were on vacation out in Colorado and caught a fancy brunch somewhere  (The Boulderado?) … I just can’t remember. Anyway, somehow, there was a big bowl of some funny cereal and fruit mixed up in some yogurt. And somehow, somebody got me to try a little dollop, even though I wasn’t known for trying anything new back then … must not have been any Cheerios laid out on the brunch table. Hey, it was pretty good! My Mom probably felt faint, but I’m sure she hid it well!

So when we got back home from wherever we were, Mom helped me look for muesli cereal. Eventually she found some at one of the big grocery stores – not in the cereal isle, but way over in the corner with the fancy gourmet foods and stuff. It was the “Original Recipe” Swiss Müesli Cereal called Familia. Müesli was invented by the Swiss Doctor Maximilian Bircher-Benner back around 1900 as a health food for his patients at his health spa and clinic. Who knows how close Familia is to his “original recipe!” Turns out he was copying what someone had served him while hiking around the Alps with his wife! So who really knows where the “original muesli” came from!

Familia is really good, with oat flakes, flour from wheat, rye, and barley, apple flakes, hazelnuts, roasted almonds (oh, I love almonds, don’t you?), wheat germ (tastes a bit nutty), and of course, sugar and honey. With all that great stuff in it, how could it possibly not be great?

Muesli Recipe #1:

The easy way to eat Familia is to just pour some milk on it, add a little fresh fruit, or, in a pinch, even some raisins. I like to let it soak up the milk for a few minutes before eating it. You can experiment with using yogurt instead of milk and trying it with different fruits. Yummy!

Ok, now for the other news. Familia is so authentic and Swiss that it’s actually made in Switzerland. So that makes it a bit expensive. It’s made over in the Swiss Alps somewhere and then it’s got to be shipped all the way over here so we can buy it and eat it.

Also note that it is not a low-calorie food; the suggested serving size of ½ cup, about 55 grams, is good for 220 calories. Those calories are no problem for your and your brother, but once you’re a great aunt or uncle, that’s something that you may need to keep an eye on.

As an active and growing kid, a ½ cup may just not be enough for a really good breakfast. As my Mom and Dad undoubtedly noticed, heck, I sure did, those little boxes of Familia didn’t last me real long. About 6 “suggested servings” per box. And as Mom and Dad did notice, and I probably did not, that little box of Familia cost a lot more than a giant box of Cheerios. So my pure big-bowl Familia breakfasts didn’t last too long.

My Dad has also observed that the Swiss are not know for growing lots and lots of grains like oats and wheat and rye. When you think of Switzerland, what do you think of? Chocolates? Cuckoo clocks? More chocolates? International banks and gold bricks? More chocolates? Swiss watches? More chocolates? Alpine skiing? More chocolates? Yeah! Oh, but no waves of amber wheat fields … yep, they’re over here in our mid-western states.

My Dad though it was really crazy for us to raise all these grains here in the USA, ship them to Switzerland to get them turned in to Familia, and then ship the Familia with all those grains back to the USA, so we could buy it and eat it. These days that known as excessive carbon footprint for all that shipping. Back in the day, avoiding all that shipping all over the world was just frugal.

But plain frugal put the kibosh on my big bowls of Familia for breakfast. What was a hungry kid to do?"

Check back tomorrow for part 2 of Uncle John's guest post!