New Rule: People recommending that a particular cereal tastes like Buc-Wheats cereal need to have actually eaten Buc-Wheats at some point in their lives.

Man. Two recent commenters to my original post lamenting the absence of Buc-Wheats cereal from the marketplace proposed some current alternatives.

It seems clear that neither of these writers had experience with actual Buc-Wheats.

Upon cracking our first box of Kelloggs' Frosted Flakes GOLD this morning the look and taste were immediately quite evocative of our late, lamented Buc-Wheats. It's been too many years to say for sure but to me the similarities are more than casual.

If by "more than casual" you mean "not at all", then yes, of course, I agree with you.

I went and bought a box of Frosted Flakes GOLD, even though I could read on the box that Frosted Flakes GOLD is corn-based. It is honey-flavored with horrific marshmallow overtones. (Like Honey Nut Corn Flakes, but sweeter.)

Not two weeks later, we hear from this individual:

There is a cereal out there that is almost exactly like Buc Wheats. It's called Maple Buckwheat Flakes Cereal by Arrowhead Mills.

Wow, I thought. Maple. Buckwheat. We could be on to something.

Here, again, we have a problem with language, in which one needs to remove the word "exactly" and replace it with "nothing".

So now I've got these two boxes of cereal (Frosted Flakes GOLD and Maple Buckwheat Flakes) in my cupboard and I have no intention of eating any more of them.

For those of you who never ate Buc-Wheats, or who have smoked too much of the locoweed to remember, permit me to attempt an evocation of this discontinued cereal.

It was a wheat-based flake. The closest in texture I know of is Total. But less sweet, a little more whole-grain in flavor. The maple sweetening syrup was drizzled into the cereal, so that most of the flakes were unsweetened, some had just a bit of sweetness, and a few were fused together in a tasty clump of sweet maple-y goodness.

One could compare this in the savory realm to homemade Chex Mix, in which one stumbles across an intense shot of worcestershire sauce-soaked Chex in a handful of mildly seasoned Chex.

This irregular texture and sporadic sweetness was a huge part of the cereal's awesomeness.

In fact, my recollection is that at some point the recipe/manufacturing processes changed. Some rumors suggest that the actual buckwheat was removed--I don't recall noting that, but I do recall that after the change the flavor of the flakes had a bit less depth.

Also after the change there were no longer any maple-encrusted clumps of flakes. The application of the maple flavoring was far more evenly applied.

I still loved Buc-Wheats during this era, although not quite as much, and when I want a cereal that evokes this latter-day Buc-Wheats I turn to Kellogg's Healthy Heart Maple Brown Sugar Smart Start.

It's too sweet and crunchy by far (wish that I could extract the oat clusters), but the maple flavoring combined with the whole grain (in this case oat bran) flakes is the closest thing I've got.

Commenters are welcome to offer their own suggestions, so long as they follow the rule (above). And I'll say right now that unless you write 250+ extremely convincing words describing what about a particular cereal is like Buc-Wheats, I'm not going to run out and try it.

Fool me twice, won't get fooled again.

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