TWINKIES

Twinkie is a "Golden Sponge Cake with a Creamy Filling" created by Hostess, and baked by Continental Baking Co., which is owned by Kansas City-based Interstate Bakeries Corporation. Twinkies measure 4" x 1" (10 cm x 2.5 cm) and are usually sold in packages of two. They have a shelf life of approximately twenty-five days (very long for a baked good). Various urban legends have stated that Twinkies have shelf lives anywhere from several years up to one century in duration, or that they are not actually baked, but there is no evidence to support this.

In the United States, the Twinkie is commonly regarded as the quintessential junk food. Each Twinkie contains about 145 kilocalories (607 kilojoules). Five hundred million are produced each year.

How Twinkies are made

The Twinkie was invented on April 6, 1930 by bakery manager James Dewar, making thrifty use of shortcake pans that were usually only used during the strawberry season. Twinkies originally contained a banana cream filling, but this was replaced with a vanilla cream filling during a banana shortage caused by the outbreak of World War II. [1]

Though Continental Foods has never revealed how Twinkies are made, most people believe that they are baked, because the bottoms look brown. The Washington Post reported on April 15, 2005 that "the cakes are baked for 10 minutes, then the cream filling is injected through three holes in the top, which is browned from baking. The cake is flipped before packaging, so the rounded yellow bottom becomes the top." Hostess was the implied source of this information.

Fried twinkies

Main article: Deep fried Twinkie

According to the Hostess website, Christopher Sell invented the "fried twinkie" at the ChipShop, his restaurant in Brooklyn, New York. It was described by the New York Times in this way: "Something magical occurs when the pastry hits the hot oil. The creamy white vegetable shortening filling liquefies, impregnating the sponge cake with its luscious vanilla flavor. . . The cake itself softens and warms, nearly melting, contrasting with the crisp, deep-fried crust in a buttery and suave way. The shop adds its own ruby-hued berry sauce, which provides a bit of tart sophistication."

By 2002, the Arkansas State Fair had introduced the fried Twinkie to great popular acclaim, and the notion spread to other state fairs across the U.S., as well as some establishments that specialize in fried foods.

Twinkies in popular culture

Main article: Twinkies in popular culture

• The Minnesota Twins are nicknamed the "Twinkies" by fans, a joking reference to the team's tradition of ineptitude dating back to their days as the Washington Senators. During the seventh-inning stretch rendition of Take Me Out to the Ball Game, it is traditional in the Metrodome, the Twins' home park, to replace "the home team" with "the Twinkies".

• The twinkie defense is a derogatory term for a criminal defendant's claim that some unusual factor (such as allergies, coffee, nicotine, or sugar) diminished the defendant's responsibility for the alleged crime. The term arose from the trial of Dan White, who was convicted in the fatal shootings of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk, but the "Twinkie defense" was in reality only a minor and insignificant element of the defense case. (Compare Chewbacca Defense.)

Slang use

Twinkie, in some communities, is commonly used as slang. For the most common use, as gay slang, see Twinkie (gay slang).

Far less commonly, the term "twinkie" might be used disparagingly as a food metaphors for race, for an Asian-American who emulates Caucasians (yellow on the outside and white on the inside), similar to the term "oreo" for African Americans. In the movie Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, the main character, Harold, is labelled a Twinkie by his Asian-American peers due to his lack of connection with his Korean origins. An alternate synonym for the use is "Banana". It is also used pejoratively to those biracial people who are half-Asian and half-White.

In some Native American circles a "twinkie" is a person who believes in sickeningly sweet and artificial version of American Indian religion(s) or claiming to be Native American for fraudulent purposes [2].

TV journalist Linda Ellerbee, in the opening paragraphs of her autobiography And So It Goes, defines a "twinkie" as the kind of blow-dried TV news reporter who doesn't fully understand the news he or she is reporting--citing herself as an example.

A "twinkie" or simply "twink" in gamer slang is a somewhat derogatory term for a young gamer who doesn't fully understand the hobby, or a more experienced gamer whose lack of understanding is presumed to be willful. "Twinking" is a term used in many role-playing games referring to the player's use of the rules to create the most effective character possible through in-game rules, (similar to min-maxing), especially when skills or abilities selected contradict the character's personality, if it is such a game where depth of character is an issue. In the former sense it is less pejorative than munchkin but more pejorative in the latter sense (since the more experienced gamer ostensibly should know better). Another, equal known use of the term describes a high-level character in an RPG (typically an MMORPG) who has a low-level, alternate character equipped exclusively from the high-level character's cash and/or equipment reserves.

A "twinkie" is also used in Western Canadian street youth communities to describe a member of an affluent or otherwise stable home environment yet chooses to live the street kid lifestyle without necessity. It could be argued that the slang pejorative "mark" would be the same.