The Twinkie That Never Dies

Photo by Photog Bill on Flickr/Creative Commons

After 40 years, there’s a Twinkie in Blue Hill, Maine that remains uneaten.

The reason why is not a decades-long diet or even a town-wide aversion to gluten. Instead, this particular Twinkie lives its life as a science experiment.

The Twinkie sits in a glass box at George Stevens Academy. It’s been at the school since chemistry teacher Roger Bennatti requested the cylindrical cake for an experiment in 1976.

During a lesson about preservatives and shelf life, a student asked Bennatti about the lifespan of a Twinkie. The story goes that Bennatti sent a few of his students to the store with cash in hand to buy the now famous Twinkie. When they returned, he ate one Twinkie, and set the other one on top of the blackboard. There, the students could observe changes in the Hostess treat over time—or the surprising lack of them.

According to the Bangor Daily News, Bennatti retired in 2004. The Twinkie lives on in the office of Libby Rosemeier, the school’s Dean of Students. Rosemeier was once a student in Bennatti’s class, and says that no one has challenged the school’s claim of being home to the oldest Twinkie in the world.

The well-known Twinkie has been thrust into the spotlight once before: when Hostess filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and announced it would stop manufacturing sugary treats like the Twinkie. It became a rarity for a short time, until July 2013, when Twinkies were put back on shelves.

“The Twinkie is a story that will never die,” Bennatti once told the Daily News.

Unless, he added, someone is brave enough to eat that slightly discolored cake.