Corn flakes, or cornflakes, are a

breakfast cereal Cereal, formally termed breakfast cereal (and further categorized as cold cereal or warm cereal), is a traditional breakfast food made from processed cereal grains. It is traditionally eaten as part of breakfast, or a snack food, primarily in ...

made from toasting flakes of

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

(maize). The cereal, originally made with wheat, was created by

Will Kellogg William Keith Kellogg (April 7, 1860 – October 6, 1951), generally referred to as W.K. Kellogg, was an American industrialist in food manufacturing, best known as the founder of the Kellogg Company, which produces a wide variety of popular br ...

in 1894 for patients at the Battle Creek Sanitarium where he worked with his brother John Kellogg who was the superintendent. The breakfast cereal proved popular among the patients and Kellogg subsequently started what became the Kellogg Company to produce corn flakes for the wider public. A patent for the process was granted in 1896, after a legal battle between the two brothers. With corn flakes becoming popular in the wider community, a previous patient at the sanitarium,

C. W. Post Charles William Post (October 26, 1854 – May 9, 1914) was an American innovator, breakfast cereal and foods manufacturer and a pioneer in the prepared-food industry. He was the founder of what is now Post Consumer Brands. Early life Char ...

, started to make rival products. Kellogg continued to experiment with various ingredients and different grains. In 1928, he started to manufacture

Rice Krispies Rice Krispies (known as Rice Bubbles in Australia and New Zealand) is a breakfast cereal, marketed by Kellogg's in 1927 and released to the public in 1928. Rice Krispies are made of crisped rice (rice and sugar paste that is formed into rice ...

, another successful breakfast cereal. There are many generic brands of corn flakes produced by various manufacturers. As well as being used as a breakfast cereal, the crushed flakes can be a substitute for bread crumbs in recipes and can be incorporated into many cooked dishes.

Description

Corn flakes are a packaged cereal product formed from small toasted flakes of corn, usually served cold with milk and sometimes sugar. Since their original production, the plain flakes have been flavored with salt, sugar, and malt, and many successive products with additional ingredients have been manufactured such as sugar frosted flakes and honey & nut corn flakes.

History

The development of the flaked cereal in 1894 has been variously described by John Kellogg, his wife

Ella Eaton Kellogg Ella Eaton Kellogg (April 7, 1853 – June 14, 1920) was an American dietitian known for her work on home economics and vegetarian cooking. She was educated at Alfred University (B.A. 1872, A.M. 1875); and the American School Household Economics ...

, his younger brother Will, and other family members. There is considerable disagreement over who was involved in the discovery, and the role that they played. According to some accounts, Ella suggested rolling out the dough into thin sheets, and John developed a set of rollers for the purpose. According to others, John had the idea in a dream, and used equipment in his wife's kitchen to do the rolling. It is generally agreed that upon being called out one night, John Kellogg left a batch of wheat-berry dough behind. Rather than throwing it out the next morning, he sent it through the rollers and was surprised to obtain delicate flakes, which could then be baked. Will Kellogg was tasked with figuring out what had happened and recreating the process reliably. Ella and Will were often at odds, and their versions of the story tend to minimize or deny each other's involvement, while emphasizing their own. Tempering, the process the Kelloggs had discovered, was to become a fundamental technique of the flaked cereal industry. A patent for "Flaked Cereals and Process of Preparing Same" was filed on May 31, 1895, and issued on April 14, 1896 to John Harvey Kellogg as Patent No. 558,393. Significantly, the patent applied to a variety of types of grains, not just to wheat. John Harvey Kellogg was the only person named on the patent.John Harvey Kellogg, U.S. Patent no. , ''Flaked Cereals and Process of Preparing Same'', filed May 31, 1895, issued April 14, 1896. Will later insisted that he, not Ella, had worked with John, and repeatedly asserted that he should have received more credit than he was given for the discovery of the flaked cereal. The flakes of grain, which the Kellogg brothers called ''Granose'', were a very popular food among the patients. The brothers then experimented with other flakes from other grains. In 1906, Will Keith Kellogg, who served as the business manager of the sanitarium, decided to try to mass-market the new food. At his new company, Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, he added sugar to the flakes to make them more palatable to a mass audience, but this caused a rift between his brother and him. In 1907, his company ran an ad campaign which offered a free box of cereal to any woman who winked at her grocer. To increase sales, in 1909 he added a special offer, the ''Funny Jungleland Moving Pictures Booklet'', which was made available to anyone who bought two boxes of the cereal. This same premium was offered for 22 years. At the same time, Kellogg also began experimenting with new grain cereals to expand its product line.

, his next great hit, first went on sale in 1928. There have been many mascots of Kellogg's Cornflakes. The most popular one is a green rooster named Cornelius "Corny" Rooster, which has been the mascot since his debut. In early commercials, he would speak the catchphrase "Wake up, up, up to Kellogg's Cornflakes!"

Dallas McKennon Dallas Raymond McKennon (July 19, 1919 – July 14, 2009), sometimes credited as Dal McKennon, was an American film, television and voice actor, who had a career lasting over 50 years. During World War II he served in the Army Signal Corps and wa ...

and Andy Devine voiced him. Later, he stopped talking and simply crowed. The concept of using a stylized rooster originated from a suggestion by family friend Nansi Richards, a harpist from Wales, based on the similarity between ''ceiliog'', the Welsh word for "rooster", and Kellogg's (unrelated) surname.

In cooking

There are a wide variety of different recipes for dishes involving corn flakes and crushed corn flakes can even be a substitute for bread crumbs. ''Honey joys'' are a popular party snack in Australia. They are made by mixing corn flakes with

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

, butter and

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

and baking in patty cases or muffin cups. A variant popular in the UK is ''chocolate corn flake cakes'', or ''chocolate nests'', made with corn flakes, dark chocolate, golden syrup and butter. Typically made at Easter for or by children, and topped with

Mini Eggs Cadbury Mini Eggs are a milk chocolate product created and produced by Cadbury. Introduced in 1967, the egg is solid milk chocolate encased in a thin coating of hard candy "shell", molded to resemble a miniature egg. Mini Eggs were previously pr ...

In New Zealand, corn flakes are a core ingredient in

Afghan biscuit An Afghan is a traditional New Zealand biscuit made from flour, butter, cornflakes, sugar and cocoa powder, topped with chocolate icing and a half walnut. The recipe has a high proportion of butter, and relatively low sugar, and no leavening (r ...

s, a chocolate

biscuit A biscuit is a flour-based baked and shaped food product. In most countries biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be ...

made with corn flakes and topped with chocolate icing.

Gallery

File:Cornflakes.jpg, Corn flakes with milk File:تصوير مبدئي.jpg, Arab dish File:Limesorbet med cornflakes (6294315466).jpg, Limesorbet med cornflakes File:Macau Grandview Hotel Breakfast Buffet Grape Oatmeal.JPG, Cornflakes with dry fruits File:銀座ライオンの大人のポテトサラダ.jpg, Japanese salad with corn flakes

References

External links