It could go down as the day the snack cake died.
I'm serious.
Twinkie the kid and all his friends aren't riding off into the sunset with his lasso and cowboy hat, they're all being put out to pasture and I don't like it. Hostess Brands, the maker of long-loved treats such as Twinkies and Wonder Bread, said Friday it is shuttering its plants and will seek to liquidate the 82-year-old business.
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Hostess cakes were already an endangered species because of the food police. Let's face it. No parent goes and buys their kids a pack of Sno-Balls unless thy want to end up on the Maury show with social services. There's nothing nutritionally redeeming about two huge, fluffy, domes of chocolate and cream, covered in an additional layer of pink or white coconut. But still they were comfort food, big time comfort food.
The chocolate cupcakes?
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They were the best despite the MANY imitations. When you got that chocolate cupcake you had a choice to make: bite right into the top and the side all at once, or eat the cake and leave the thick, sugary top with the perfect, little, white squiggle for last. You could peel it off in one piece and set it aside. Or you could eat it first. And then you had the second cupcake in the package to make the same choice.
Twinkies? My entire childhood was filled with the ads where the kids wondered how the cream got inside the Twinkie and one little cute kid would say, "It's just born there.'' Yeh, maybe you forgot about those until I just mentioned them. Those ads were classic, just like "Hey Mikey, he likes it" from Life cereal. And who can forget Ho Ho's and Ding Dongs...they were cake treats which were ahead of their time when it came to the perfect marriage of slang terms and snack food.
Suzie Q's. Ring Dings. Donettes. No not donuts... Donettes.. the little, mini, powered sugar donuts in the bag. Yum. Hostess fruit pies... Don't get me started on the lemon pie and the rare pudding pie..it wasn't always on store shelves but when it was, it was a good thing.
And don't forget about Wonder Bread. Yes, Hostess made Wonder too. This is more than a company closing. I feel terrible for the employees who have worked there much of their lives. I feel terrible for the people who made Hostess so many decades ago. And selfishly I feel terrible because this is another piece of Americana gone. Sure, maybe someone will buy the Twinkie brand again...but it won't quite be the same. It never is.
