Classic Food Friday: The Twinkie
Few snack cakes have inspired as much cultural creativity as the Hostess Twinkie, so they seemed like a good subject for this week’s Classic Food Friday. Whether people are conducting science experiments on Twinkies, putting them in deep fryers, or using them to create wedding cakes, it seems that Twinkies have always been — and will always be — here with us.
In fact, Twinkies were invented in 1930. It was not until Hostess started sponsoring The Howdy Doody Show in the 1950s, however, that Twinkies became a household name, and they stayed in the headlines in the 1960s due to the common belief that Twinkies were a smart item to store in your household bomb shelter, which gave rise to a plethora of modern urban legends about Twinkies surviving nuclear attacks.
Originally filled with banana creme, the Twinkie did not feature the modern vanilla filling until the 40s when the Hostess company was forced to improvise due to a national banana shortage during World War II. Earlier this year the company released the classic banana creme filling as a limited edition version of the Twinkie, but the taste proved so popular they will be keeping the banana twinkie as a permanent addition to the Twinkie line.
Eventually it may be high finance, not nuclear war, that ends America’s love affair with the Twinkie. The company that makes the Twinkie has been in bankruptcy for several years now, and creditor maneuvering is dragging out the proceedings even more. While this is unfortunate for everyone involved, it is a safe bet that the Twinkie will sail through this proceeding relatively unscathed … America’s favorite sponge cake has solid name recognition and sales, so regardless of what happens in court the Twinkie will probably be around for many cellophane-wrapped decades to come.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:36 am
That Twinkie cake is awesome! You find the most interesting things… I love it!
November 16th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
[...] Each Friday we take a step back from the fad foods of the season and reflect on the foods that have been a part of our pantries and our pop culture for so long that we can’t remember a time when they were not available for purchase. [...]