On April 6, 1930, James A. Dewar invented the Hostess Twinkie. While working for Continental Baking Company, which would later became Hostess, he needed a substitute for the filling in their strawberry shortcake, since strawberries were seasonal. So he choses a banana flavored cream for the strawberry filling and the Twinkie was born. During World War II, when bananas became scarce, the bakers were forced to switch to the vanilla cream that we're familiar with now.
The original Twinkies had a stated shelf life of only 26 days, the current snack cakes will last 45 day, so don't expect to survive on Twinkies after a nuclear apocalypse; that's an urban legend. But you could call it an age-defying treat. Dewar ate three Twinkies a day and lived to the age of 92.
