BREAKFAST PERIODIC TABLE

Gastronimica: The Journal of Food and Culture, vol. 9, no. 2, p.122. 2009 by Catherine Weese.

"Cereal is an emblem of industrial artifice, and this table addresses it's design evolution. After extensive research in the supermarket breakfast-foods aisle, I divided the cereals I found into five categories based on shape: the square or orthogonal, the flake, the "grain", the round and its variations, and the "fake". The table orders them in rows by shape; within each row they are in chronological order according to the date of their introduction into the market (indicated by the "elemental" number on top left). Subsidiary information includes nutritional data, price (which is no longer up-to-date), and manufacturer.

Over the course of my research I was struck by how American breakfast cereals, perhaps unwittingly, participated in the design trends of the times. The gridded shape of Shredded Wheat, the first mass-marketed cereal (1894), celebrates the industrial process and the prospect of uniformity. The flake and grain are stylized renditions of cereal's natural origins, an almost Arts and Crafts sensibility. The next geometric shape to appear on the market was the ball (Kix, 1937); its abstraction, subverted by playful connotations, ushered in a new era of cereal that targets children. Finally, the "fake" cereals emerging in the 1950s brought in the postmodern era, in which cereal pretends to be something else. My personal favorite in this category is Crunchberries (1968), and breakfast cereal imitating breakfast cereal. Its square pillows and red berries are a miniaturized version of Shredded Wheat with Raspberries, as depicted on the product's box. Thus, cereal completes its tour of twentieth-century design, from early modernism to wistful anti-industrialism to cheeky postmodern quotation."

....a really entertaining article in Gastronomica's Spring issue. I couldn't find Weese's full table online so this will have to suffice. If you're interested in this food quarterly feel free to email me-- I'll lend ya a copy!