Poet Of The Wastes: The D.S.S.G.T.G Breakfast

This post is a full year late; I took these pictures last summer of my buddy Jonathan (hair featured below) and I making a high energy breakfast cereal that I ate every morning for the last year.

Why, you may wonder, did I choose to post this long forgotten event? Because I'm in Olympia WA at the home of my dear friend David Scherer - the man who's breakfast food innovation prompted me to

1. buy a proffesional grade mixer (see pic 4)

2. spend almost $200 on a 5 gallon tub of brown rice syrup (BRS among us veterans, see pic 1)

3. find 10 half-gallon mason jars to divide the back-breaking tub into (pic 2) and

4. eat a cereal with the consistency of wet gravel for a whole year.

A brief history of the David Scherer, Super Goldberg, Tough Guy Breakfast:

This invention is actually a byproduct of one of David's earlier inventions: "Bihk". Bihk, "The Milk Of Nuts" was a creamy thin liquid that david made using nuts, brown rice syrup and water and sold to the co-op as a locally made milk substitute. After soaking the nuts in the liquid and removing the milk, a grainy sludge remained that, it occurred to David, he could eat. He then realized it was high in protean and complex carbohydrates...and when the time came to leave the Bihk business he continued to prepare it's sticky byproduct for his own enjoyment - with a new and ever improving recipe.

Enter the poet: I was having trouble finding a breakfast food that was quick, easy, healthy and filling. Then I remembered David's breakfast and he kindly sent me the recipe. It's probably the funniest recipe I ever read:

A cousin asked me to submit a recipe for a family cookbook she's putting together. I thought some of you might be interested in this for your own records, diet. David

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Your Name: David B. Scherer

Town, State: Olympia, Washington

Recipe Name: The David Scherer Super Goldberg Tough Guy Breakfast

Ingredients: Three pounds of organic brown rice syrup (it’s best to order this thru a co-op or health food store in 5 gallon buckets), eight cups of organic raw rolled oats (not quick oats), a cup of cashews, a cup of almond butter, a cup of walnuts, a cup of dark semi-sweet chocolate chips, three cups of raisins, a shot of vanilla extract, and any old cookies you have laying around. You can add and change ingredients; I do just to keep things interesting.

Directions: First you put about a cup of the raw oats in the bottom of the bowl of your Industrial Kitchen Aid Mixer. If you don’t have one, go get one. You will break anything else you might use to make this. Learn from my mistakes. I’ve broken wooden spoons, a piece of rebar, a witch’s cauldron and my arm. Next you pour the brown rice syrup in and the nuts, vanilla, old cookies and chocolate on top of that. Then you start up the mixer. Maybe five minutes, until it’s mixed up, but not all homogenized. Then you add the raisins at the end and let those mix for about a minute. When it’s done it looks kind of gross, like some old hippie’s cookie dough. Makes about seven days worth of breakfast. Store it in the Kitchen Aid bowl in the refrigerator. Serve cold and raw with milk, yogurt, maple syrup, ice cream, pie, cake and cookies. Eat it right out of the bowl. I don’t eat it first thing. I wait until I’m real hungry, about 10 a.m. Get a serious spoon because the stuff is not only hard to eat, but it’s nearly impossible to spoon out. Assist youngsters before feeding yourself. If you eat it in the morning, you won’t want to eat until about 6-7 p.m., if ever.

Story: I started eating this in college because wanted to leave my apartment in the morning and not have to eat until I got home for dinner. I’ve been eating this same breakfast for nearly eleven years now and I’ve lived to be 32 years old. Doctors are baffled. There’s no scientific or spiritual explanation why I should like this. And, I really like it. This isn’t a joke. I don’t joke about breakfast. I’ve had girlfriends break up with me over this.

The reason why this food sustains one’s appetite for so long is because the main ingredient, brown rice syrup, is about 99% maltose. This sugar, unlike others, takes about 4-5 hours for the body to break down. It gives the body a steady supply of energy. There’s no spike, no “sugar rush” and the body uses no insulin to absorb it so it’s an ideal food for diabetics. Of course, there are the side dishes (maple syrup, ice cream, pie, cake and cookies) that aren’t like that. Also, I don’t eat sugar after breakfast. Who could? So I’m a little hypo-glycemic when I wake up. I also go running before eating breakfast. By 10 a.m. I’m so unbelievably hungry that I’d just as soon eat sheet rock or car tires.