Twinkie, Twinkie, Little Cake...

In the simpler times of the 1970s, I have little doubt a pithy rhyme of some kind would be floating around the old neighborhood regarding the Hostess Twinkie on life support. It would have gone something like this: “Twinkie, Twinkie, little cake. How I thought you tasted fake. On that grocery store shelf so high. I think I’ll reach for a sugary fruit pie.” Happily, though, I see there’s more than a glimmer of hope for the Hostess brand’s survival, which, of course, includes Archie Bunker’s favorite dessert—the Twinkie.

I liked Twinkies once upon a time, but Drake’s line of products—Devil Dogs, for instance—were vastly superior in my opinion. Hostess’s airy, ultra-sugary Twinkie tended to melt in your mouth, but not always in a pleasant way. As a boy in Cardinal Spellman High School—when Jimmy Carter was the president—I consumed more than a few Hostess Suzy Q's, with a half-pint of milk chaser, in the esteemed institution of learning’s cafeteria. Thirty years later, I sampled a Suzy Q and wasn’t nearly impressed with what I once deemed a confectionery masterpiece. So, either Hostess altered its recipe, or I just could no longer stomach the Suzy Q’s super-sweet and rather extensive mélange of ingredients. Think about it: No at-home baker could produce a Twinkie or Suzy Q, no matter how hard he or she tried. There’s obviously a perverse magic in the baking process of these store brands, which, I suppose, we are better off knowing as little as possible about.

While I won’t fork over a $100 for a box of Twinkies on eBay today, I do look forward to sampling this distinctive cream-filled cake sometime in the future, preferably in a two-pack. I always found these comfort foods tasted better when they were conjoined rather than individually wrapped. I pine for the days when a local mom-and-pop grocery store—like Pat Mitchell’s Irish Food Center on W231st Street in the Bronx's Kingsbridge—had a full rack of Hostess and Drake cakes for sale and not a single gourmet pound cake on the premises. Simpler times indeed.