Host(ess) With the Most

Before certain events of last week, I already knew this was going to be a week of food-centric reporting.  We are, after all, coming up upon the most food-centric holiday of the year.  (Sure we try to cover our gluttony with a few remarks about American historical legends and saying what we are thankful for, but in reality the day is built around a bird and a slew of side dishes.)  Today's post is all about food, but hopefully not a food item that ever graced your Thanksgiving table.
 
At the end of last week, Hostess Brands filed for bankruptcy, seeking permission to close its business and sell its assets.  This announcement came with the news that "Bakery operations have been suspended at all plants," suggesting that never again will another Twinkie, Ho-Ho, or Ding-Dong be made.  As one who has never eaten any of these products, I'm not alarmed by this, but the Internet is in something of an uproar.  People are supermarket sweeping these things off the shelves, stockpiling them as if the zombie apocalypse was nigh.  Twinkies, of course, would be an obvious choice for the zombie apocalypse (as noted by the characters of Zombieland) as urban legend suggests they have an infinite shelf life.  Even Wall-E cleverly followed this assertion, pairing the golden sponge cake treat with another great survivor of note, the cockroach.  While they may survive a zombie apocalypse or the pollution-based destruction of the planet, it seems there is one disaster these treats cannot survive: the current economy.
 
I'm not about to rush off to Safeway or ebay to buy some Twinkies before they join this list of foods of yesteryear.  (Oh the fond memories of wondering wondering ooh, I did, I did, what's in a Wonderball; hunting for the granny while eating delicious waffle crisp, and trying to figure out what in the world was in Orbitz.  Not to mention the lack of memories associated with the battery-acid flavored mind-eraser that was Four Loko.)  That said, as I do with most of these discontinued products, I do miss the advertising.  Hostess really had some great ads, and while I am too young to really remember Twinkie the Kid, I did love the "Where's the cream filling?" series of ads, from the bear to the shark to the rhino.
 
Alas, with the financial collapse of Hostess (confound healthier diets!), the question those animals ask now seems to mock us.  "Where's the cream filling?"  Though perhaps no longer in our pantries or our stomachs, the cream filling lives on in our memories and our hearts.  No seriously, though, a little bit of that cream filling is probably resting in the arteries of anyone who ever consumed one of those things, so it's definitely in our hearts.

Make sure you have room in your schedule for some walking and talking today, it's Allison Janey's birthday.  (If walking and talking isn't your thing, go fly a kite.)