Shelbyville’s ‘Twinkie King’ has eaten 23,000 since 1940

Story originally ran in the March 12, 2005 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

People who dismiss Twinkies as just another junk food haven't talked to 89-year-old Lewis Browning, who has eaten the golden cake with the fluffy filling most every day since 1940.

The Shelbyville, Ind., man remembers the first Twinkie he ever tasted. It was 1936, and "I bought it at a little old grocery store over the corner from my house. They cost a nickel."

Twinkies are celebrating their 75th year, and perhaps furthering their luster as an American icon is a photography show that opened yesterday in Pittsburgh.

The local chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers, the show's sponsors, sought out the Twinkie makers, rather than the other way around. Twinkies as objets de art include diverse interpretations, from a DaVinci-inspired "The Last Snack" to an X-rayed Twinkie to a famished ferret with frosting in his whiskers.

When Browning hauled milk seven days a week, his workday started at 3 a.m., so he'd assuage his hunger with a stop at one of the small stores that dotted the Indiana countryside. He'd alternate between Twinkies, which once had banana filling, and their sister snack, Hostess cupcakes, still recognized for their signature white squiggle across the chocolate frosting. His milk truck required two hands to steer.

During World War II, bananas were hard to come by, so in 1945 Twinkies went to vanilla cream frosting, and Browning went along. Now that he's retired he starts each day with one. "For breakfast I have a Twinkie, a glass of milk and a banana," he said.

Twinkies were invented in 1930 by Jimmy Dewar of the Hostess Baking Co., now part of Kansas City-based Interstate Baking, which manufactures half a billion Twinkies a year. Pittsburgh's are baked in Chicago.

Sweet snacks are a $12 billion-a-year business, and half of them are eaten by adults, according to Jacques Roizen, chief marketing officer for Interstate.

Roizen, 36, grew up on croissants in his native France. "Twinkies are better for you than croissants," he said. "Croissants -- at least the good ones -- are full of butter."

There's no butter in Twinkies, and in fact its claim to promotional fame these days is "no trans fat," the latest enemy of eating right.A Twinkie has 150 calories.

The conflict between what we should eat and what we want is a recurring theme in American society, and one of the art show photos pictures a little boy holding an orange while a balloon overhead pictures a Twinkie.

Bill Kolarik, of McCandless, has heard all the Twinkie jokes. For 29¹/₂ years, he has set out at 3:30 a.m. five days a week to deliver the snack cake of preference for many an American on the move.

"You know, like even after a nuclear war, we'll be able to find a Twinkie," he said as he restocked shelves at Reyes Sunoco on Babcock Boulevard in Ross. "Like, they're that indestructible."

Twinkies and other high-sugar treats are often considered junk food, and nutritionists worry that they can contribute to childhood obesity.

But photographer Tom Altany places these sweet treats at fame's table in his iconic work, "The Last Snack," in which the Twinkie takes center stage among other snack foods. The photograph has a long table with a rumpled silk cloth, tiny trays of Barbie food and a dozen sweet stand-ins for the diners at The Last Supper. The DaVinci take-off may raise some eyebrows, appearing as it does during Lent.

Altany, chair of the 24-photo show at Point Park University, said some have suggested his work might be sacrilegious. "After 24 years of Catholic schooling, I'm not looking to do that," he said. "I'm looking to have fun."

The Twinkie pieces bring forth the sense of home and family with the very first photograph, a pregnant Megan Moses of Coraopolis, pictured with a Twinkie atop her belly. She's the wife of a friend of Chris Rawlinson, who teaches photography at Point Park.

That's good news for Lewis Browning, who packed a few Twinkies in his suitcase when he had to spend two weeks in the hospital with pneumonia. Louise, his wife of 54 years, asked the doctor if it was OK if her husband ate them.

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