Social Econ Blog

Food writer Steve Ettlinger has written a book tracing all 39 ingredients of a Hostess Twinkie to their origins. Twinkies say alot about American food culture, and Ettlingers fundamental question in "Twinkies, Deconstructed" is a good one:

At the heart of the book is the fundamental question: why is it you can bake a cake at home with as few as six ingredients, but Twinkies require 39? And why do many of them seem to bear so little resemblance to actual food? The answer: To stay fresh on a grocery-store shelf, Twinkies can't contain anything that might spoil, like milk, cream or butter. Once you remove such real ingredients, something has to take their place—and cellulose gum, lecithin and sodium stearoyl lactylate are a good start. Add the fact that industrial quantities of batter have to pump easily through automated tubes into cake molds, and you begin to get the idea.