Top Five Hostess Cakes

I meant to write this post a couple of weeks ago during the fake outrage and sentiment over a bunch of crappy, fattening snack foods no one even eats anymore, but got lazy and forgot about it until now (which seems appropriate somehow. I equate Hostess with apathy because who ever gets excited about eating these things anyway.)  All that said, Hostess Cakes were definitely a part of childhood, for better or worse, so I wanted to pay tribute to these sugary, and always uninspiring snacks that were never as good as they seemed.

So here are my TOP FIVE HOSTESS CAKES

5) The Baseball Cupcake

"But Mom, it has a baseball on the top!  I like baseball!  It's gotta be good!"  I doubt I ever uttered those words, or any like them, but I'm sure I found the idea of the baseball cupcake more appealing because I liked baseball.  Sorta the same reason we all wanted Air Jordans when we were younger; we wanted to be part of some club that marketers sold us on, but didn't really exist.  Unless the club was "children of annoyed parents who wish their kids would shut up about baseball cupcakes."   Anyway, regardless of all that, the vanilla flavored cake was eons better than their signature chocolate cupcake, despite the fun swirl on the top of those.  It's hard to fuck up a chocolate cupcake, actually, I would have argued it's impossible, save for the fact I've eaten enough Hostess chocolate cupcakes to know they are fucking terrible.  So, it's very possible. 

4) The Devil Dog

Technically a Drake Cake, but since Hostess owned Drake, we'll include it.  I believe Devil Dogs were limited to the east coast because when I mentioned them once to west coast born co-workers years ago, they had no clue of what I was talking about.  I had my mother send me out a box, which we all ate together, then shrugged and said "OK, that happened," before we got a drink of water and felt guilty.  My parents would often put Devil Dogs in my school lunch as a dessert, and nine times out of ten, my turkey sandwich would crush the snack to make the whole eating experience a complete mess.  Plus, the cake had a horrible habit of sticking to the top of my mouth, which drove me crazy.  And they kinda look like turds.

3) The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pie

I suppose this was the Ecto Cooler of cakes. You gotta love food and drink that are colored green so they appear radioactive. That's gotta be healthy. I remember I bought my first turtle pie with Danny McGarry back in elementary school.  We both loved the ninja turtles, and now suddenly we had a green filled pie to celebrate our appreciation for all their ass-kicking efforts.  And, of course, it sucked, and I barely got halfway through it.  I don't remember exactly what it tasted like, as I'm sure "ass" wasn't the intended flavor, but for Brett not to finish something sweet, you know it's complete shit.

However, a little later on in life, these pies made for great projectiles when throwing them at friends' cars (don't judge).  You'd throw, they'd splatter and stick, and everyone would have a good laugh.  Save for the person who found their car the next morning covered in the green goo of turtle pie.

2) Twinkies

I have to admit I did like these overly sweet snacks (even the shitty tasting low-fat version), though not as much as the smell of them.  I suppose they were like popcorn in that sense, the scent was more enticing than the actual cake.  Regardless of my appreciation, my main memory of the Twinkie was vomiting one on the side of my parent's car while driving to Cape Cod one August.  It was also the day I realized I couldn't read in the car without getting sick.  My parents had bought me a Mickey Mouse comic book, which I read and enjoyed until I realized the unstoppable wave of nausea brought on by the concentration.  Needless to say, I couldn't make it to the next rest stop, so I rolled down the window and threw up PURE WHITE along the side of the car.  Like Santa's beard.  Anyone want a Twinkie?

1) Suzie-Q

This thing should have come with a warning label it was so dense.  I'm surprised there wasn't a rash of choking incidents caused by Susie-Q's getting lodged in people's throats. 

In high school, we had some sort of current events class that seniors mainly used to goof around.  And, one day, we got caught on a conversation about lunch, and the teacher offered that he was eating a salad, or something else that was light.  Louis was so offended by his choice and dismissed it as "women food."  When asked what "women food" consisted of, Louis ran through various low-cal items that wouldn't fill him up even if he wasn't hungry.  When the teacher asked him what "Man Food" might be, Louis paused for a moment and confidently said...

"A Susie-Q"

There ya have it, have a good day all.