Today in 1930, one of the sweetest treats of our time made its debut.
It’s the birthday of the Twinkie.
If you grew up thinking that the filling in the middle of the Twinkie was “just born there” like the kid in the commmercial, well, here’s the actual story.
The proud parent of the Twinkie was James Dewar, of the Continental Baking Company in River Forest, Illinois.
The company made strawberry shortcakes, but when the berries were out of season they had all these empty pans sitting around.
Dewar came up with a banana cream filling for the spongy yellow cakes, and got the name Twinkie from a billboard he’d seen advertising Twinkle Toe shoes.
The new treat took off in a big way after Continental Baking was acquired by Hostess, even after they switched to a vanilla cream filling due to the banana shortages of World War II.
What made Twinkie a hit?
They were tasty, they were affordable, and they lasted seemingly forever.
There are no dairy products in a Twinkie, not even in the cream filling, which is made with shortening.
So as long as they’re kept dry and unopened, they stay pretty much as they are.
Fans swear they stay edible for much, much longer than the official shelf life of about 25 days.
Some have taken to storing them for years or even decades.
The U.S. even added Twinkies to its Millennium Time Capsule in 1999, but we will not find out whether those snack treats would have lasted until the year 3000.
The National Archives was worried the Twinkies might lure mice into the capsule, so they were removed.
The Twinkie has millions of fans, but none as devoted as Louis Browning of Shelbyville, Indiana.
He started eating at least one Twinkie a day as a kid in 1941 – and continued for decades, eating tens of thousands of the treats, even asking his doctor for special permission to consume Twinkies while he was hospitalized with pneumonia!
The company ended up giving him a lifetime supply.
Twinkies, 75 Years And Counting (Washington Post)
This Week In Illinois History: Birth Of The Twinkie (April 6, 1930) (Northern Public Radio)
