Few snacks are as instantly recognizable as the Twinkie. That golden sponge cake with its creamy center has been tucked into lunchboxes for generations. But how did this little cake come to be, and is it true that it lasts forever?
Here's the short version. The Twinkie was invented in 1930 by a baker named James Dewar, who wanted to put idle equipment to work. The first Twinkies were filled with banana cream, not vanilla. Rationing during World War II forced the switch to vanilla, and the change stuck. And no, Twinkies don't last forever.
Born From Idle Machines
James “Jimmy” Dewar was a Canadian-born baker working for the Continental Baking Company in Schiller Park, Illinois. The company used special machines to make cream-filled strawberry shortcakes. But when strawberries were out of season, those machines just sat there.
Dewar came up with a solution: a small snack cake filled with banana cream, which could be made year-round. He invented it on April 6, 1930.
As for the name, Dewar said he got the idea from a billboard he saw in St. Louis advertising “Twinkle Toe Shoes.” Twinkle became Twinkie, and a legend was born.
From Banana to Vanilla
During World War II, bananas were rationed, so the company switched to vanilla cream. Customers liked it, and banana Twinkies mostly disappeared.
Other flavors came and went. In 1988, Fruit and Cream Twinkies with a swirl of strawberry filling appeared and were soon dropped. Banana made a comeback thanks to a giant ape. In 2005, during a month-long promotion tied to the movie King Kong, Twinkie sales rose 20 percent. In 2007, the company brought back the banana-cream Twinkie, though today's version is made with just 2 percent banana purée.
The Myth of the Immortal Twinkie
A popular urban legend says Twinkies can last for decades, even a century, without spoiling. That isn't true. The original Twinkies had a shelf life of 26 days. Stronger preservatives added starting in 2012 stretched it to 45 days.
Someone actually put this to the test. A box of Twinkies from around 2012 was opened eight years later. One cake was completely covered in mold, another had a little mold, and the filling in a third had turned brown and reportedly tasted like an “old sock.”
The Twinkie Nearly Disappeared
Sales had been slipping. In 2011, Twinkie sales were 36 million packages, down almost 20 percent from the year before, as Hostess said shoppers were turning to healthier foods. In 2012, the company went bankrupt and shut down its bakeries, and Twinkies vanished from American shelves. Time magazine responded by naming the Twinkie number one on its list of 10 iconic junk foods.
The break didn't last long. Investment firms bought Hostess's brands for $410 million, and Twinkies returned to stores on July 15, 2013. The new owners later sold Hostess for $2.3 billion. Today, Twinkies are made in Emporia, Kansas.
The Twinkie has also earned a spot in movie history. In the 1984 film Ghostbusters, a character uses a Twinkie to explain a spooky energy reading, imagining one 35 feet long and weighing about 600 pounds. “That's a big Twinkie,” comes the reply.
So whether you prefer vanilla or banana, every Twinkie carries a bit of history: a clever baker, a wartime shortage, and a snack cake that refused to go away.
