I can’t prove this exactly, but I’m nearly certain that I ate a Pop-Tart every day from 1998 to 2011. (When a man turns eighteen, that’s when he graduates to the more sophisticated Toaster Strudel.) Suddenly, it was a professional asset when—in a recent Esquire entertainment meeting—someone brought up Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted, which tells the origin story of this American creation. (It’s streaming on Netflix now.) Everyone chimed in with their favorite flavors: Strawberry! Blueberry! S’mores!
I generally respect my colleagues, but they’re wrong. Say it with me: The best Pop-Tart flavor is frosted brown sugar cinnamon.
more insane food takes
If you didn’t know, Kellogg’s extracts its mutated glucose from the dried riverbanks of Mars, so if you’ve had several hundred Pop-Tarts in your lifetime (like I have), you’ve developed preternatural psychic abilities, sort of like what spice is to Mr. Chalamet-Jenner-Muad’Dib in Dune.
That’s just to say, I don’t think I’m right—I simply am. (I’m talking to you, dogmeat69, who reviewed the flavor on the Pop-Tart website with a pithy “this flavor is garbage. just a complete discrace to the poptart name.”)
A “discrace”! So, to mark the occasion of Unfrosted, I created a miniature taxonomy of the Pop-Tart. Sure, no one asked for it, but when you’re the Pop-Tart’Dib, it’s something you have to do at least three times a millennium.
Kellogg's Pop-Tarts Variety Pack
Credit: AmazonThe GOAT-Tart
An exceptional Pop-Tart comes down to two things: filling and frosting. (I’ll directly address the unfrosted readers below.) It sounds insane to write this about a Pop-Tart, but the brown-sugar-cinnamon filling? It’s the only one that feels like your Auntie Martha made it—not Richard from Kellogg’s food-science lab. Gooey, subtle, not too sweet. I’d even eat the brown-sugar-cinnamon filling outside the two-walled confines of the Pop-Tart. Replace a PB&J’s J with BSCF? Please.
As for the frosting: I dare the most sophisticated palate to convey its taste through words. Really, the frosting doesn’t exactly taste like cinnamon, brown sugar, or icing. It is what it is. You know how Oreo cookie chocolate isn’t chocolaty per se—it’s just Oreo? That’s how I feel about frosted brown sugar cinnamon. I just know that it beats the frosting on other Pop-Tarts, which just taste like dehydrated birthday-cake icing.
And since you’re curious: Seinfeld’s favorite Pop-Tart flavor? He told CBS News, “Brown sugar cinnamon, obviously.”
Obviously. The man is missing the frosting, but I rest my case.
Pop-Kellogg's Pop-Tarts Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon
Credit: AmazonHonorable Mentions
Frosted Blueberry and Strawberry: The only other sane flavors to list in your Pop-Tarts Hall of Fame.
Frosted Chocolate Fudge: I’d eat this at 5:00 a.m. without batting an eye.
Frozen Pop-Tarts: Don’t knock it until you try it.
Netflix/YouTubeDamn right, Melissa.
I Wouldn’t Hate Them If You Put Them in Front of Me
Dessert Pop-Tarts: A bit of an oxymoron, sure, but I’d eat frosted s’mores and confetti cupcake if I hated myself that day. (Roughly 4x/week.)
Frosted Grape Pop-Tarts: I haven’t tried this kind, but the idea of grape-flavored anything is so delectably nasty that I admire it.
Toaster Strudel: If you’re toasting your Pop-Tart, you’re just eating a stale Toaster Strudel. I don’t make the rules.
Homemade Stunt Pop-Tarts: Who else is eating the shredded barbecue beef Pop-Tart for dinner tonight?
The Original Sins of Breakfast
The New Ones: Banana bread? You’re sick, Kellogg’s.
Simply Frosted Harvest Strawberry Pop-Tarts: If I want an artisanal Pop-Tart, I’ll go to Whole Foods and pay fifteen bucks for it.
Anything Unfrosted: If your Pop-Tart isn’t frosted, that means you’re not interested in ingesting that Martian glucose, in which case you shouldn’t be eating a Pop-Tart in the first place.
Related Story
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pr%2FQrqCrnV6YvK57xaimnWWUp7avt46abWluZW5%2Fdn2OqaapZaSWv7W%2FjJ%2BpqKukmrFurtGorqdlo6q0or6MnKCnppGivK950Z6top2nZA%3D%3D