The Quick 10: 10 Twinkie Tidbits

We've neglected a very important anniversary on the _floss this week - Twinkies turned 80 years old on Wednesday! Because I feel terrible that we overlooked such an important pop culture icon, here are 10 facts about the snack cake that's been on grocery store shelves since 1930.

1. Twinkies were invented basically because a bakery manager named James Dewar wanted to get more use out of his shortcake pans.

He noticed that he was only pulling those particular pans out of his cupboard during the summer strawberry season and wondered if he was really getting enough bang for his buck out of them. The Continental Baking Company where he was employed was looking for a new, cheap snack to satisfy Depression-Era buyers without emptying their pockets, so Dewar combined the neglected shortcake pans with a recipe that was cheap to make and came up with the Twinkie.

2. Back in those days, Twinkies were sold two for five cents...
3. Which was a good price if Dewar wanted to buy his own creation in a store, because he never saw a penny of royalties from inventing the Twinkie or naming them. They were named after he spotted a billboard advertising "Twinkle Toe Shoes."

4. Despite that persistent urban legend, Twinkies do have a shelf life - you're not going to want to eat one after it's been sitting around for 25 days, Hostess says....
5. So you're definitely not going to want to eat the one Bill Clinton put in the Millennium Time Capsule in 1999. It's scheduled to be opened in 2100.

6. The Twinkie originally had a banana cream filling instead of the vanilla cream we know and love today. Bananas became pretty scarce during WWII, so Hostess made a substitution. It was so popular they just decided to make it a mainstay.

7. Love Twinkies? You're in good company. Archie Bunker did too; his famous temper flared up whenever Edith forgot to put one in his lunchbox. And Tallahassee from Zombieland, of course, was perpetually on the hunt for the cream-filled spongecakes. When he finally finds his Holy Grail at the end of the movie, he gleefully sinks his teeth into it... but in real life, Woody Harrelson wouldn't eat a real Twinkie. He's a vegan and Twinkies do contain eggs and beef fat. Vegan Twinkies had to be made for the scene.

8. Deep-fried Twinkies are delightful. I mean, they're terrible for you, but they're delightful. You can get pretty much anything deep-fried on a stick at the Iowa State Fair and I think I have tried most of them. The Mars Bar is good, the HoHos are decent, Oreos are only so-so. But the Twinkie? The deep-fried Twinkie is like biting into a little slice of batter-covered heaven. But if you're counting calories, you'd better stick with the normal version - a Twinkie right out of the package is 150 calories, whereas the battered version will set you back 425 calories. And let's not even talk about the fat content.

9. Twinkie recipes, you ask? But of course. The Twinkie-misu at the bottom of the page is speaking to me, but the Twinkie sushi would be pretty fun to make as well.

10. Do you remember Twinkie the Kid?

It doesn't seem like you see him much these days, but he is the official mascot. He can wrangle you up a Twinkie in the blink of an eye. He has some lesser-known Hostess cohorts including Captain Cupcake, Happy Ho Ho and Fruit Pie the Magician.

Twinkies: love "˜em or leave "˜em? I like them just fine, but they're not one of my favorites. Although after writing this, I'm strangely compelled to seek one out today...