»Twinkie, Deconstructed
Twinkie, Deconstructed was a surprisingly difficult book to finish. The author's premise fascinates me: investigating each of the several dozen distinct ingredients in the Twinkie snack cake (that phrase alone makes me shudder).
The writing made reading the book painful: the text is rife with mis-spellings and poorly-chosen phrases, and has an abundance of commas, often where instead a semi-colon or colon is appropriate instead. The book also confuses the reader by introducing jargon tens or hundreds of pages before actually defining the phrase or using it in context; I had to look up Maillard reaction after re-reading a chunk of the book to see what I had missed (nothing), and ultimately found a definition towards the very end of the book.
Despite the poor editing, Steve Ettlinger tackles a tricky topic with aplomb. His investigation takes him into the bowels of the earth, through monumentally large factories, and into areas made for the industry of food production.
By arranging the book so strictly along the ingredients, Ettlinger misses some intriguing connections amongst the processes and ingredients: security, petroleum, and food science. He mentions the importance of protecting the food supply ‐ food colouring especially at risk — from antagonists, but does not discuss what might happen or how; he does not discuss how so many of the ingredients, refining processes, and transport of the Twinkie require crude oil; and he misses out on explaining how and why so many emulsifiers, preservatives, and anti-caking agents fit together into the diminutive snack cake.
