Twinkies

Pretty quiet at the Boggy Thicket today, so I might as well comment on the demise of Hostess Twinkies.  Everybody else is – War is heating up in Gaza, Congress is holding hearings on Benghazi, a Veterans’ Parade in Midland was hit by a train, but every newscast is talking about Twinkies being done in by the unions.

Personally, I won’t miss them that much.  As a hopeless chocoholic, I was much more affected by the demise of Ding-Dongs and Hostess Cupcakes, but the Twinkies have been a part of American diet and culture since 1933.

Here’s a Twinkie factoid for you.  The original recipe had a banana cream filling, but that was changed to vanilla cream when bananas were being rationed during WW II.  When sales began to drop several years ago, Hostess tried to reintroduce the original recipe as an option, but it was not well received.

Twinkies don’t go bad like other cakes, and  their longevity has led to the myth that Twinkies have a shelf life measured in years, even decades. Roger Bennatti, a science teacher at George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill, Maine, kept one perched atop his chalkboard for 30 years. "It's rather brittle, but if you dusted it off, it's probably still edible," he told the Associated Press when he retired back in 2004.

Twinkies may not last forever, but they may come back.  Market analysts say there is a good chance that someone will buy the brand and reintroduce Twinkies in the near future.