Hook Honey Bun Goldfish if you can

These Honey Bun Goldfish Grahams must not have made enough of a splash to stick around.

Production of the honey bun variety of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Grahams may have already dried up, but I think it's important to write about them for the fossil record.

I found a few packs swimming around on the shelf of a Pepperidge Farm outlet in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and I haven't seen one anywhere else since then. The Honey Bun grahams are also conspicuously absent from the Goldfish Grahams product site, which currently only lists Vanilla Cupcake, Fudge Brownie, Cookies & Cream and S'mores varieties.

From an evolutionary standpoint, I can understand why these particular crackers may have died out. Goldfish Grahams, for anyone who hasn't seen them, are shaped like the swimming cheese snacks loved by children everywhere, only they're graham crackers. I've previously sampled the Vanilla and S'mores varieties, reviewing the latter. It netted an impressive four-and-a-half sporks out of five.

The Vanilla version, while not making this particular blog, was almost as good. But it no longer exists, apparently having given way to the fancied-up Vanilla Cupcake version. And that's where we come back to the subject of today's discussion, Honey Bun grahams.

The Honey Bun flavor is good, but it's not that different in taste from regular Vanilla. Since Vanilla seems to have had to evolve into the whiz-bang "Vanilla Cupcake" to survive, it stands to reason that plan old Honey Bun just wasn't cutting it on store shelves. Still, if you see a pack in an outlet or online somewhere, it might be worth shelling out a couple of bucks to grab a piece of history.

There's just a trace of honey that lingers after every bite. It combines with the standard flavor of graham crackers to drive you back for another handful. You also might want to have a glass of milk handy, because the eating process is bound of leave you thirsty.

Overall, these fish are worth eating, even if they are a rare breed. I'm a big supporter of sustainable seafood, but this is one fish that we can't (and shouldn't) preserve. Any bags of Honey Bun Goldfish are quaint relics of time at this point, but they're moving closer to suffering as fish out of their historical waters.

Enjoy them while you can. They're worth four sporks out of five.