But is it...food?

June 27, 2016 12:16 PM

This Twinkie is 40 years old. What it says on the tin, or in this case the glass box.
posted by Melismata (26 comments total)

The AskMe practically writes itself.
posted by Shepherd at 12:24 PM on June 27, 2016 [26 favorites]

I always feel like the underlying message of 'this convenience food item has been around for X years' stories is not really 'behold, our food is full of preservatives and bad for us' so much as it is 'behold, we have all moved so far away from having to process our own food that we as a society have forgotten that drying things is a tremendously effective method of food preservation'.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:29 PM on June 27, 2016 [38 favorites]

Yeah, but dried CAKE? You can make cake jerky?
posted by Sing Or Swim at 12:30 PM on June 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

If you make jerky out of bread, you call it a crouton. So, cake, sure?

Coating pieces of pound cake in oil and baking/frying them until they're quite crunchy and then using them in trifle is completely awesome. I wouldn't normally bake them until they're so dry they end up preserved for 40 years, but I wouldn't actually be surprised if you took one out of the oven and left it sitting on the counter surrounded by air if it wouldn't dry sufficiently to self-preserve before it molded.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:38 PM on June 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

You can make cake jerky?

If I were kept in a glass tank for forty years I imagine I'd be kind of a jerk, too.
posted by backseatpilot at 12:38 PM on June 27, 2016 [9 favorites]

Morgan Spurlock puts various McDonalds items under glass for eight weeks.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 12:44 PM on June 27, 2016

Spoiler: It's actually David Blaine.
posted by davebush at 12:56 PM on June 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Only 40? I always thought Twinkies were, y'know, eternal.
Oh, and, try 'em frozen, folks. Seriously.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:58 PM on June 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Speaking of science experiments involving Twinkies, The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project was one of the first "haha wtf" things I saw online.

At the time, it was thrilling that a couple of kids could do something so pointless and ridiculous, and put it online for the entire world to see. That it now seems so tame and mundane is a testament to the success of the Internet. I suppose The Youths will never understand what it was like to live in a time when gatekeepers controlled all mass media.

Totally getting a Twinkie on the way home, BTW.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 1:30 PM on June 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

This Twinkie is 40 years old

You're right but only Mrs. Clinging is allowed to call me that. And only in the nighttime.

Oh I see. Nevermind.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 1:30 PM on June 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Also 40+ years old. Also still probably delicious enough in a pinch.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:32 PM on June 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

I have a feeling what you are about to go through is punishment enough.
posted by AndrewInDC at 1:47 PM on June 27, 2016

I'd like to believe that I would not eat that.
posted by mazola at 2:20 PM on June 27, 2016

But is it...food?

I'm not sure that leaving it sat around for 40 years is enough to turn a Twinkie into food, no.
posted by Brockles at 2:26 PM on June 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

A Twinkie held under glass for 8 weeks will spawn Hortas' which will in turn mine for Ho-Hos'.
posted by clavdivs at 2:37 PM on June 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

>Yes. Twinkie jerky. Twerky.

I propose a new variety of Slim Jim made from Twinkies: the Slinkie.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 3:03 PM on June 27, 2016

I always thought of Melba toast as bread jerky.

Now let's cut through the crap. Who is going to take a bite out of it?
posted by Splunge at 3:12 PM on June 27, 2016

I propose a new variety of Slim Jim made from Twinkies: the Slinkie.

This reminds me of the Slim Jim I inherited from my predecessor at a former job. I don't know how old it was when it was first pinned to his wall, but it was dried-out enough at that point to inspire comments like "Wow, it's hard" and "That's what she said" and "Keep it in the wrapper" and "That's what she said."

I kept it in my drawer for like 7 years after that, then in a box of my stuff for maybe 6 months more. I'm pretty sure I eventually threw it away, but maybe I'll find out otherwise when I unpack next month.
posted by limeonaire at 3:41 PM on June 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh, I don't know.... after all, there are chunks of Queen Elizabeth & Prince Phillip's wedding cake from 1948 still around, as well as her grandparents George & Mary's cake and even some of Victoria & Albert's. And there's even a complete cake (that survived a WWII bomb blast with nothing worse than a big ol' crack) from 1898, now in the Willis Museum in Basingstroke England. Not Twinkies, to be sure, but we can't have everything.

(I have an ancestral package of frozen black-eyed peas at home: bought as a let's-try-this idea something like 40-45 years ago, and long since turned into a family joke. I'm gonna pass them down in my will.)
posted by easily confused at 4:15 PM on June 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

We're of the belief that they made one massive gigantic batch of Twinkies decades ago and they're still selling them off that same stock. They'll have to find the recipe or stop selling them altogether if they ever run out.
posted by azpenguin at 4:27 PM on June 27, 2016

Second grade in my school was the occasion for a mind-bogglingly pointless but always highly anticipated visit to the Hostess factory. We got to watch them pump the spooge ^H^H^H^H^H^H creamy filling into capsule-shaped trays of the yellow rubber gunk, and were advised that Twinkies are not baked. We were given a Hostess treat to take home. I chose one of those artificial cherry pie things, which my parents met with eye-rolling resignation.

On second thought, maybe they were just trying to point out to us how revolting and unnatural the Twinkie creation process was, so it wasn't totally pointless.
posted by gusandrews at 5:07 PM on June 27, 2016

I'm getting flashbacks to a rather strange interchange in an old thread, that I'm now going to storify:

Best road trip find ever: the BeeBo Creme Filled Booper.

I had to Google. I'm not sure why I did that. "After some research, I discovered that BeeBo Creme Filled Boopers are now known as Blue Bird Creme Bingles, made by Flowers Foods (NYSE FLO.) This seems to be the only known photo of the Booper."

"BeeBo Creme Filled Boopers are now known as Blue Bird Creme Bingles"
I just wanted to type that once because, frankly, I don't see the opportunity arising ever again.

I'm mostly worried that the knowledge that a bunch of marketing people one day gathered in a meeting room and decided that "Boopers" should henceforth be known as "Bingles" pushed something important out of my brain.

(and since I remember that thread almost two years later, I'm now 100% convinced that I've forgotten something really important I was supposed to do in 2014.)
posted by effbot at 6:00 PM on June 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

My 6th grade teacher had a Twinkie tacked to the wall for the same illustrative purpose. It had been there for a few years when I was there and I'm 46 now, so if it still exists, it would give this Twinkie a run for its money.

Also, I am forever referring to croutons as bread jerky from now on.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 6:48 PM on June 27, 2016

If we preserve the Twinkie in organic natural honey, it will last longer than human civilization!
posted by nicebookrack at 9:01 PM on June 27, 2016

Tell him about the Twinkie.
posted by Aznable at 6:57 AM on June 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

What about the Twinkie?
posted by domo at 8:07 AM on June 28, 2016