Could Twinkies be the secret ingredient in your Thanksgiving turkey stuffing?
The venerable Hostess Brands company — maker of the Twinkies snack cake — may be in emergency liquidation after failing to reach an agreement with striking labor unions, but a New York caterer is apparently trying to keep the Twinkies tradition alive at least for Thanksgiving.
Caterer Butch Yamali suggested that it is his mother’s “secret family recipe” that convinced he and his brother to eat turkey when they were kids, but the recipe reportedly was also published in book called (unsurprisingly) The Twinkies Cookbook .
Twinkies plus Thanksgiving turkey consists of a two-step process as explained in the video below: You use the creme filling as a glaze on the turkey skin, and you mix the Twinkies sponge cake into the turkey stuffing. A recipe can be found here.
If you’re wondering how the bankrupt Twinkie-maker Hostess Brands wound up going out of business entirely, The Examiner explains that while the company was badly run, it could have emerged from bankruptcy if it had obtained relief from some of the union contracts which it had partially achieved.
“Forbes noted earlier this year that those union contracts required numerous superfluous jobs and redundant expenses that made Hostess too inefficient…
“A deal that included a 25 percent ownership stake in the company, a seat on the board of directors and $100 million in reorganized debt was offered to the company’s unions. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters agreed to the deal, which included concessions for its members. But the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union, which represents 30 percent of the Hostess workforce, refused to make any concessions and instead announced a strike…
“Without the ability to get its product out, and without an investor to step in and buy it, the already teetering company had no choice but to liquidate.”
Watch CNN reporter Jeanne Moos interview the caterer and his chefs about the Twinkies turkey stuffing for Thanksgiving:
