Twinkies Re(De)constructed

Twinkies have this continuing allure for me, but they never manage to fulfill my childhood expectations. When I was a kid, my mother wouldn't buy them for us (too expensive for her taste), so, naturally, I craved them. As an adult I'm inevidably disappointed because they never taste as good as I remember. The most recent disappointment being in February during our monthly selection meeting, when we reviewed Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated into What America Eats by Steve Ettlinger. It's a chapter-by-chapter exegesis of the natural and unnatural ingredients in Twinkies. Reviewed with real Twinkies (regular and low-fat) in hand, the better to compare the truth with reality. The book was better than the Twinkies and one of the more unusual titles we've considered this year. Here's a review from Sunday's Houston Chronicle: "A Twinkie by any other ingredient wouldn't taste as processed" (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/4814243.html).