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| Wonder Bread, November 17, 2011
The inevitable has happened. Hostess Brands, which includes Wonder Bread and Hostess Twinkies, is bankrupt and are closing all their operations around the US, including Home of Wonder Bread in downtown Waterloo, Iowa. Approximately 80 workers--including bakers and drivers--are losing their jobs here.
Home of Wonder Bread was built by the Continental Baking Company in 1957. This yellow brick with red accent building is a landmark, sandwiched between the Carnegie Waterloo Public Library, the orange-y building to the right, and the Waterloo Art Center (unseen) to the left. The aroma of baking bread has wafted from it for over a half a century.
Almost exactly a year ago, I drew this from my car on a chilly, windy November afternoon. My original flickr post of this drawing is here.
For local news coverage in today's Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier with some photos of Home of Wonder Bread go here.
I associate Wonder Bread and Hostess Twinkies with guilty pleasures from my childhood. Oh, those pure white, silky, flat pillows of white bread, spread with smooth Skippy peanut butter and Welch's grape jelly that I was served at my best friend's house (never at my own!). And the rituals of eating a Twinkie--the thrill of breaking open the golden spongy loaf, appreciating the inside's perfectly centered, whitest of white cream, which I'd test with the tip of my tongue, before taking a bite. But my most favorite were the Hostess Cupcakes. They were the ultimate of comfort food, with their dark thin frosting crossed by that cheerful and elegant white loopy line. Inside: flawless chocolate cake with a white cream heart. There were two schools of eating a Hostess cupcake: mine was lifting off thin wafers of frosting before taking a bite. Or my friend's: cutting to the quick with a bite to the middle--cake and frosting and cream all in one mouthful. Hostess cupcakes were the standard for chocolaty wonderfulness until, as adults, we were swept into gourmet and the likes of upscale flour-less chocolate cake decadence.
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Friday, November 16, 2012
Death Knell for Twinkies
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Nice warm color...like bread. I still remember eating Twinkies and the cupcakes as a kid. The cupcakes are probably what sent me down the road to chocolate addiction! What's so sad about all this is the ripple effect of all the jobs being lost.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the hardship of lost jobs. Meanwhile, there's another company in Waterloo that seems to be teetering on insolvency--GMAC Mortgage--which has even more employees. But John Deere, probably the largest employer in this town, keeps on keeping on very well, manufacturing and selling tractors to the world.
DeleteYes, exactly, Dave! From what I read, striking when the company was in bankruptcy since last January wasn't the best idea in the world. What a shame...
DeleteAnd I love your sketch, Marcia...
This isn't the first time that I have drawn a local business that then fails. I'm glad to have done the drawing when things were viable. The images take on an added significance once they become history.
DeleteGreat sketch and oratory, Marcia! I can see this post as a side-bar item in a history book chapter dealing with the economics of this era. I also relate to your eating joys. However, to me the Twinkie is the best, followed by the Hostess Cupcake.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there were Ding Dongs. I'd forgotten about them when I was writing this. Thanks, John, I am honored by your comment. I spent 7 years in the late 90s & into the early 21st c. writing and recording personal essays for Iowa public radio. I was always on the lookout for stories that spoke from the personal to a larger significance. I was hoping that this post would do the same.
DeleteChocolate Donettes, for me...haven't had 'em in decades, but I liked knowing they were Out There.
DeleteAnd Marcia, I think you very much succeeded.
OMG! Chocolate Donettes! More of that crackly chocolate frosting than on the cupcakes! This is becoming a really fun trip down junk food alley. Good thing bantering about them is as fulfilling as eating them.
DeleteYup, I don't eat wheat OR sugar any more if I can help it, and feel a lot better for it. Doesn't support the employees of companies like this, but whatchagonna do?
DeleteI don't have much of a sweet tooth but I will miss the comforting sight of them all on the grocery shelves.
ReplyDeleteMarcia, I love how you captured the light and shadow on the wall!
I'm not sure why I'm so nostalgic about these treats, because I too am not a sweets person. As a child I was though.
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