snack cakes make me sad

[llcoolvad]

Apparently I still have pretty deep food issues, because I've been seriously sad all day, and I really think it's about Hostess closing down. Which is SO WEIRD, because honestly until today I haven't had a Hostess or a Drake's product in about a year and a half. But man, I loved them all: Cupcakes, Donettes, Pies, Twinkies, and on the Drake's side, Yodels, Pies, Yankee Doodles, Sunny Doodles, Devil Dogs...I can't go on.

When I was a kid, my mother would hand me cash and make me go to the convenience store for her, to pick up her cigarettes and some snacks. She was partial to snacks I didn't like, like those sugar-covered jelly "fruit" slices, but I was also allowed to get myself something, and inevitably it would be either a Hostess or Drake's thing. It was a bright spot in my day, and the one time my mother could be relied upon to be happy with me.

I think it's also that some things seem eternal. I mean, no one eats Wonder Bread any more, right? But you always expect to see that cheerful wrapper in the bread aisle. I really can't imagine wandering around the snack aisle and not having cupcakes as an option! And I guess I've been very loyal over the years: I've never eaten a single Little Debbie product. They seemed WRONG.

Obviously I try not to eat foods like that, now. If I'm going to pile on the calories I want it to be genuinely delicious and not just super sweet. But one of the ways I've managed to mostly stay on track with my weight was to remind myself that the things that I used to love will always be there, and I can have them later, when I get closer to my goal. BUT! Now I can't, ever again! And so what, right? But I guess it's a big deal in my head.

I'm pretty sure it's also tied in with my company going through bankruptcy and purchase. We got our offer letters for the new company yesterday while Hostess' news was everywhere, and somehow they've become inextricably linked in this management vs. workers morass in my brain. I feel so bad for the Hostess workers. I hate their management for blaming the workers and their strike when in reality it was them and their enormous bonuses and their terrible management practices. I hate my management for screwing up our company and making a lot of people lose their jobs. I hate that even the people who are getting new jobs with this new company are stressed beyond belief because we just don't know what is next. I hate that we have been treated like lower-than-second-class citizens during this process. I hate the injustice of the way we currently do business (we, the country). I hate Mitt Romney and everything he stands for, and I just know he'd be just like the CEO of Hostess that I saw on tv today, blaming the strike.

There's also the local Johnnie's Foodmaster sale, mostly to Whole Foods. Another local chain swallowed up by a giant non-local chain. I was walking around the store the other night and I found it unbelievably sad. It was totally a community center; local teens all worked there, the bulletin board was very active with lost cat notices, people looking to do odd jobs, etc., and due to its central location everyone stopped there for supplies all the time. But now it's a hollow shell, and all the employees are going to have to interview with the Whole Foods corporate people to see if they can get a position at the new store — which won't be open for many months.



This morning, on my way to work, I stopped at my local convenience store and bought a pack each of Donettes, Yodels, Chocolate Cupcakes, and Orange Cupcakes (that's all they had other than SnoBalls, which I never liked). If I can find Devil Dogs somewhere I'll get some of those, too. I've eaten the Donettes and the Yodels today. I want to eat the others, but once I do they're gone forever, so I don't know when I will. (It's just like how I've still never seen the last episode of Firefly because once I do, there will never be another new episode of Firefly to look forward to.)



I know they're planning to sell the brand, and some day, probably soon, there will be Twinkies and Cupcakes and so forth again. But knowing that all the workers have been discarded after decades of service, I don't know that I'll ever be able to bring myself to eat another morsel of their food. It won't be the same at all. And that just makes me so sad.

Comments

[lizarde.livejournal.com]

My Dad has eaten a package of Suzy Qs most nights before bed since before I was born. And he's still pretty thin. Go figure. A lot of people are sad.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I grew up with Hostess snacks in my packed school lunch and I have zero emotional response to this news. I haven't eaten a Hostess product since the 70s, I would guess. I am trying to think of anything else I used to eat that would trigger some kind of food-related nostalgia, but I am not coming up with anything. I am in the minority, believe me. I know several people who are super bummed out about this.

I hate Hostess so much for blaming the unions when it's their "screw the workers, we got ours" management practices that are to blame.

[jostajam.livejournal.com]

I grew up not too far from the Hostess factory in Natick. It was right next to The Natick Mall. It always smelled wonderful. The contents of the factory were a rarely sampled treat and very much a part of my childhood.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

I mostly associate Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and Cupcakes with Hostess (though I had always thought I was forgetting what the cupcakes were called). The other day, I noticed that Little Debbie (no relation) has things that look like the Swiss Rolls and the Cupcakes. I generally think of Little Debbie for their Nutty Bars.

I haven't bought any of these things in ages, though as a kid, Twinkies were an occasional special treat in the lunchbox. I don't feel grief exactly because I prefer my own cooking. (In fact yesterday I got to try another famous bakery around here, and again decided that I prefer my own cooking, so apparently I have pretty specific tastes in baked goods. For example, brownies should not be cake, but neither should they be fudge; I don't see how so many people get them wrong. Chewy, not sludgy.) But I do feel like this is yet another thing that young people won't know what I'm talking about. Or what they were talking about in that one zombie movie (Zombieland?) where one of the main characters was jonesing for one of those products (which I also don't remember), but found only Snowballs. Or what the Twinkie Defense is. I do feel like it's the end of an era. Though if someone keeps them going, none of that might happen.

I did not know the cause(s) of the demise. But I am really tired of certain kinds of people, who already make more in one year than I'll make in my entire life, getting bonuses instead of pink slips when they do a job that's so disastrously bad that they take down an entire company.

On a lighter note, I am amused that my boyfriend is calling these things "collector's items." Because they really do last.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Oops, to be fair, I will make more in one life time than some of the biggest execs made in a year, and not just the four who accepted a salary of $1 one year. Still, it sounds like there were a lot of poor decisions beyond salaries and pension that ran off caring employees.

[p-j-cleary.livejournal.com]

Barnes & Noble, Johnny's Foodmaster, and Hostess all make you sad. I'm going to have to figure out something awesome to do for Christmas to lift your spirits!!