Today is the debut of a new feature here on 22tue: Food on Fridays. To kick things off, a word about breakfast. One question Chris and I often get asked here in Europe is, do  we miss any North American foods? Typically we will say no — and mean it. You see, since we like all different kinds of foods all around the world, there aren’t any American foods that we crave while we’re in Europe that we always make a beeline for when we’re in the U.S.

Well, OK, in fact there is one exception, I guess: The Friendly’s Fribble. But that “craving” began as a joke — I will confess that it’s not  something we actively crave when we’re not near a Friendly’s, despite how many times I’ve blogged about it. 😉  There are too many other good things to eat in all the places we’ve lived to be craving a Fribble, or any other food we frequently had when we lived in North America.

Anyway, until recently, I was certain that we always adapted well to the local cuisines, and didn’t ever need to fall back on any North American foods at all.

But … I now must admit that that’s not really true. It wasn’t that we’ve been lying about that, we just haven’t been thinking about it the right way. Because when people ask me that question about foods, I assume they are asking about things you eat for lunch or dinner, i.e. things you cook, e.g. fried chicken, hamburgers, etc., or foods you eat out. I just don’t think of the question as applying to breakfast cereal.  But it turns out that breakfast cereal is the one food where we have always been particular, and a meal where we have, on occasion, had trouble adapting to the local offerings.

For example, when we lived in California, we loved Trader Joe’s brand of Cashew and Almond granola. There are no Trader Joe’s stores in Canada, and so when we moved to Vancouver, we did actually miss that granola. (BTW, thanks to all the friends and family members who humored us, either bringing us boxes of that or having it available when we came to visit).

But, since those care packages only got us so far, we did search around for a viable alternative. After trying various other cereals available in Vancouver, we settled on Multi-Grain Cheerios.

When we moved to Bolzano, we walked around the supermarket to see what options there would be for breakfast cereals there. And lo and behold, Multi-Grain Cheerios were available on supermarket shelves in Bolzano. So, we just kept eating those for breakfast in Italy. It’s not a traditional Italian breakfast, of course. An Italian woman once explained to me, the stereotypical Italian breakfast is an espresso, a brioche (croissant-like pastry), and a cigarette. She was joking … sort-of). So, with that in mind, we decided in Bolzano that having local Italian food would be great for other meals, but Cheerios would still be our breakfast of choice, even there.

Then we moved to Germany. The typical German breakfast cereal is Muesli, which is a cereal-like food that, IMHO, consists of way too many grains and nuts, tasting way too healthy. Of course, many Germans around here seem to have ham and cheese on a roll for breakfast instead of cereal – maybe they also think that Muesli tastes a little too much like health food. 😉

But the supermarkets here do carry some American-style cereals, which are all referred to generically as “Cornflakes” in German. As I mentioned in an earlier post , though, Cheerios were not available in Germany (there were no General Mills brand cereals to be had in Germany, actually). So, we’ve spent the past two years trying different, mostly American, cold cereals for breakfast, without finding any we really liked.

When we were back in Bolzano again recently, I actually walked by the supermarket there and on a whim bought us a box of Cheerios to have for our breakfasts while we were in a little vacation apartment in Bolzano. And then, while we were in the U.S. in October, I bought and brought back to Germany both a box of that Trader Joe’s granola, as well as a box of Cheerios.

Buying American cereal to bring back to Germany made me realize that while we pride ourselves at always adapting to the local cuisines quite well, we’ve never really adapted to finding a good breakfast cereal in Tübingen. Which definitely means we aren’t really quite as adaptable as I thought.

But now, we don’t need to worry about how to adapt anymore. A couple of weeks ago,  there I was in the cereal aisle here in Tübingen, looking over the offerings, trying to figure out if there was anything new to try. I gave up the hunt and rounded the corner to head back toward the check-out counter. As I passed the end of the aisle, I almost bumped into the special display of new offerings in the store.

And there it was: Multi-Grain Cheerios, big as life, taking up a whole area of the “what’s new in the store” display. Cheerios is now sold in Germany.

So, our breakfasts at home in Tübingen can now be made cheerier with Cheerios once again! 😉