with much success.
Sure enough, over the years, the Twinkie has become a foundational item in American pop culture. Archie Bunker described it as “WASP Soul Food” on the hit 1970s TV show All in the Family, and there are even Twinkie recipes for such varied dishes as Twinkie Pancakes and Twinkie Sushi. Not surprisingly considering his then-penchant for sweets, President Bill Clinton included a package in a 1999 time capsule celebrating the millennium. While some may think disposable Twinkies are an odd addition for a time capsule, think again. A Maine teacher once claimed he kept a perfectly good-looking Twinkie next to the chalkboard in his classroom for thirty years (Hostess sort of ruins that party, asserting their cake really only has a shelf-life of about twenty-five days). The treat’s darkest hour—beyond when nutritionists take potshots at it—came when Dan White, who murdered San Francisco mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978, said his intake of junk food was evidence of the depression that led to the killings. The media dubbed it the “Twinkie Defense.”
Yet, through it all, Dewar stood by his strawberry-inspired (or lack thereof) creation. “Some people say Twinkies are the quintessential junk food, but I believe in the things,” he said decades after the invention. “I fed them to my four kids, and they feed them to my fifteen grandchildren. My boy Jimmy played football for the Cleveland Browns. My other son, Bobby, played quarterback for the University of Rochester. Twinkies never hurt them.” As Dewar lived to the ripe old age of eighty-eight on a diet that regularly included the spongy treat he may very well have been right.
Additives and Extras
Alka-Seltzer: Newspaper discovery
The biggest story a journalist at the Elkhart Truth ever broke never made it into print. In December 1928, the small northern Indiana town of Elkhart was hit by a countrywide cold and influenza epidemic. Businesses in the area were barely staying open with so many employees calling in sick.
One day during the outbreak, Andrew H. “Hub” Beardsley made a trip over to the Truth , a local community newspaper, to have a friendly chat with its managing editor Tom Keene. Hub and his brother Charles ran Dr. Miles Medical Company, a local business specializing in remedies. Their big seller was something called Dr. Miles’ Nervine, which allegedly treated such “nervous” ailments as headaches, backaches, epilepsy, and sleeplessness. They also sold Dr. Miles’ Cactus Compound for heart ailments (it might have helped the heart, but with its main ingredient being 23 proof alcohol, it’s unclear what it did to the rest of the body). Despite some success the Beardsley brothers were really looking for a bubbling concoction, known as an “effervescence,” that could be a cure-all.
While Hub wasn’t searching for his answer when he walked into the Truth that day, he did notice something peculiar. None of the newspaper’s employees were absent. Shockingly, they all seemed to be working away as if the flu scourge had passed them by. Hub was intrigued and asked Keene how this was possible. Keene delivered the monumental scoop: He pulled out a mixture of aspirin, bicarbonate, and lemon juice and explained that whenever an employee began feeling sick, he’d just mix up the bubbly combination. Instantly Hub knew he’d found the product he’d been searching for.
He went back to his laboratory and charged his chief chemist, Maurice Trencer, with putting the elements of the Truth ’s magic elixir into a tablet. Within a week, the scientist had created Aspir-Vess, which was later renamed Alka-Seltzer. (The new name combined “alkaline,” a term for an acid-repelling element, with the popular fizzy drink “seltzer.”) While the product was marketed for a number of ailments, including such far-flung problems as exhaustion and a bad temper, from a food-and-drink perspective it became a go-to item for
Sure enough, over the years, the Twinkie has become a foundational item in American pop culture. Archie Bunker described it as “WASP Soul Food” on the hit 1970s TV show All in the Family, and there are even Twinkie recipes for such varied dishes as Twinkie Pancakes and Twinkie Sushi. Not surprisingly considering his then-penchant for sweets, President Bill Clinton included a package in a 1999 time capsule celebrating the millennium. While some may think disposable Twinkies are an odd addition for a time capsule, think again. A Maine teacher once claimed he kept a perfectly good-looking Twinkie next to the chalkboard in his classroom for thirty years (Hostess sort of ruins that party, asserting their cake really only has a shelf-life of about twenty-five days). The treat’s darkest hour—beyond when nutritionists take potshots at it—came when Dan White, who murdered San Francisco mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978, said his intake of junk food was evidence of the depression that led to the killings. The media dubbed it the “Twinkie Defense.”
Yet, through it all, Dewar stood by his strawberry-inspired (or lack thereof) creation. “Some people say Twinkies are the quintessential junk food, but I believe in the things,” he said decades after the invention. “I fed them to my four kids, and they feed them to my fifteen grandchildren. My boy Jimmy played football for the Cleveland Browns. My other son, Bobby, played quarterback for the University of Rochester. Twinkies never hurt them.” As Dewar lived to the ripe old age of eighty-eight on a diet that regularly included the spongy treat he may very well have been right.
Additives and Extras
Alka-Seltzer: Newspaper discovery
The biggest story a journalist at the Elkhart Truth ever broke never made it into print. In December 1928, the small northern Indiana town of Elkhart was hit by a countrywide cold and influenza epidemic. Businesses in the area were barely staying open with so many employees calling in sick.
One day during the outbreak, Andrew H. “Hub” Beardsley made a trip over to the Truth , a local community newspaper, to have a friendly chat with its managing editor Tom Keene. Hub and his brother Charles ran Dr. Miles Medical Company, a local business specializing in remedies. Their big seller was something called Dr. Miles’ Nervine, which allegedly treated such “nervous” ailments as headaches, backaches, epilepsy, and sleeplessness. They also sold Dr. Miles’ Cactus Compound for heart ailments (it might have helped the heart, but with its main ingredient being 23 proof alcohol, it’s unclear what it did to the rest of the body). Despite some success the Beardsley brothers were really looking for a bubbling concoction, known as an “effervescence,” that could be a cure-all.
While Hub wasn’t searching for his answer when he walked into the Truth that day, he did notice something peculiar. None of the newspaper’s employees were absent. Shockingly, they all seemed to be working away as if the flu scourge had passed them by. Hub was intrigued and asked Keene how this was possible. Keene delivered the monumental scoop: He pulled out a mixture of aspirin, bicarbonate, and lemon juice and explained that whenever an employee began feeling sick, he’d just mix up the bubbly combination. Instantly Hub knew he’d found the product he’d been searching for.
He went back to his laboratory and charged his chief chemist, Maurice Trencer, with putting the elements of the Truth ’s magic elixir into a tablet. Within a week, the scientist had created Aspir-Vess, which was later renamed Alka-Seltzer. (The new name combined “alkaline,” a term for an acid-repelling element, with the popular fizzy drink “seltzer.”) While the product was marketed for a number of ailments, including such far-flung problems as exhaustion and a bad temper, from a food-and-drink perspective it became a go-to item for
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