We were talking about urban legends the other day and the subject of Twinkies came up. I’m not sure why, but Twinkies seem to have always been a good topic for a tall tale, You’ve probably heard a lot or most of them yourselves.
Can Twinkies really stay fresh for 50 years or more? If you were around during the Cold War in the 50s and 60s, when a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union seemed possible, you might think so. Apparently at the height of the Cold War, Twinkies were one of the staples of the survival foods people stocked in household bomb shelters. This probably helped spawn the notion that they could withstand not only a nuclear holocaust but also the ravages of time.
You may remember that back on November 12, 2016 Hostess announced that they were shutting down operations and selling off their assets. That meant no Twinkies — for a while at least, There was no doubt that the recipe and rights would be bought by another company.
Twinkies were thought up by James A. Dewar, the Vice President of Continental Bakeries that sold products under the Hostess brand. Dewar came up with the idea for Twinkies while he was trying to come up with a way to utilize the machines used to make cream filled strawberry shortcakes when strawberries weren’t in season. The machines normally sat idle during this time. In fact, during the 1980s Hostess introduced a strawberry cream filled Twinkie, but it wasn’t successful. Twinkies were originally filled with banana cream, hence the coloring and shape. During World War II, bananas became scarce, so they switched to vanilla cream.
Dewar also came up with the name “Twinkies.” He was on the way to a marketing meeting and saw a billboard advertising “Twinkle-Toes Shoes” and came up with the name.
One of the artificial ingredients in Twinkies is cellulose gum, which gives the cream in Twinkies its smooth texture. Another place you can find cellulose gum is in rocket fuel.
According to research, it takes about 45 seconds to explode a Twinkie in a standard microwave oven.
I haven’t had a Twinkie in a long time (many, many years) but if I remember, they weren’t too bad. I read that more than 1000 Twinkies can be produced every minute — that equates to about 500 million per year. If that’s true, it puts the kibosh on my favorite Twinkie story…. Due to an error in market research, the company overproduced Twinkies two decades ago and hasn’t made any since, and will not resume production until all the “vintage Twinkies” are eaten.
— 30 —