"The only real stumbling block is the fear of failure. In cooking, you have got to have a what-the-hell attitude." ~ Julia Child

The Twinkie Defense

by Julie on January 15, 2012

in Food News

Old Twinkie box from the '70s

Happy Childhood Memories

Quick! When you think of your childhood kitchen, what are the foods you see? What were your favorite things to eat? What were the treats? What pops into your mind first. Don’t overthink.

Because please. I don’t wanna hear about your mother’s crepes or your bubbie’s noodle kugel. Or the organic, “fruit-juice-sweetened” vegan cookies you mother plied you with. Tell me about the crap you really ate.

Am I the only one who thinks of Twinkies? I didn’t think so.

Ah, Twinkies. So reviled. And yet so much a part of the collective American childhood.

My Mom never failed to buy a box of these every week. We also got a box of Ding Dongs and, if we were really lucky, a box of Ho-Hos. The Ho-Hos never lasted the night. The Ding Dongs tended to disappear quickly as well. That left the Twinkies. Still worthy, but the workhorse of our brown bag lunches.

Here’s a good writing exercise: How do you describe that unique Twinkie taste? Let me close my eyes and try to remember…

Because you had to smash your nose up into it to get a bite, you got an olfactory hit before you got to the sweet part. The smell?  Spongy plastic, but not unpleasant, as spongy plastic aromas go. The cake itself was chewy and engineered to seem fresh and light. The “cream” filling was where you got your real dose of treacle, and by that time you were committed. The whole thing could go down in three bites. One if you were a teenage boy.

I’ve always held that after the age of 13, you lose the ability to digest a Twinkie, and just as well. Once you gain any inkling of what really goes into them (no actual food), you move onto other treats, (or possibly recreational drugs.)

I haven’t had a Twinkie since those early teenage years. Our house had an ant problem, and one day I pulled a Twinkie out of the middle drawer where they were kept, found somebody had opened the packaging already. The ants were all inside, working furiously to break the thing down, but I only noticed when the Twinkie crumbled in my hand, eaten away from the inside, like a corpse. I can’t look at one now without shivering.

Yes, the news is that the company that makes Twinkies — Hostess — is filing bankruptcy, (second time in a decade) but Twinkies aren’t going away. The company is now owned by a private equity group, and this is how they go about breaking the unions and destroying the company from the inside out, not unlike the ants. Say what you will about processed crap food like Hostess products, they provided a lot of good jobs for American workers. Can’t have that, now can we? Twinkies are too much of an iconic brand to let go of. But maybe they’ll be made in China instead of here.

At least we know they’ll keep fresh on the boat over.

 

Photo from Waffle Whiffer’s totally cool Flickr set on Hostess Cakes

 

 

{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

DiaaKrisy January 16, 2012 at 5:52 am

Working hard to get that sweet, light, lucious and creamy consistency into the FOK recipe for non-dairy cream cheese. I think it’s all a matter of how much air you can incorporate into it.

It sure is fun to try!

(FOK = http://www.forksoverknives.com)

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sarah gilbert January 16, 2012 at 3:29 pm

sure enough, I think of Twinkies and Ho-Hos. Oh how I loved them! Everything Hostess made won my undying affection. My mom famously bribed me to stop wetting the bed with Hostess “snacks.”

I also think of those cube-shaped Laffy Taffys. and the Lucerne ice cream that you had to peel the cardboard back from the edges of to scoop out. and margarine scooped on Bisquik pancakes. ahh, childhood. I’m going to have to go eat some organic kale now to make up for even thinking these things.

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alice January 17, 2012 at 10:01 am

flaming hot cheetos! i could eat a whole large bag and get heart palpitations from all the msg. i also had a thing for twix bars.

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Karen January 18, 2012 at 1:40 pm

My momma only bought the twinkies and company when we went on our yearly month long camping trip. It was probably a bribe for all those hours spent in the back of the car with my brother. Needless to say we both looked forward to camping. (The first thing I thought of when I ready the opening paragraph was my momma’s garlic bread. Nobody can make it the way she did.)

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Julie January 18, 2012 at 1:54 pm

Karen – We used to get that garlic bread out of package…you’d just pop it in the oven for a few minutes….it came out hot and garlicy, and about as bread-like as an old shoe. Sigh. I miss that sorta thing!

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Bonnie McCarthy January 19, 2012 at 2:09 pm

Hostess was forbidden except when packed in lunches for school field trips! Go figure! As such, Twinkies, Ho-Hos, Apple Pies and the like were considered a mega-treat!! Admittedly, I still love ’em -but I haven’t gone on a school field trip in a while!

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Gina January 22, 2012 at 4:37 pm

My brother’s favorite was the hostess berry pies and honey buns that you had to bake…hot with butter!!

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