![]() "I wanted to find one product that was familiar, whose ingredient list was about the right length and which covered the range of ingredients, flavors and colors," he says. He considered exploring the ingredients used to make bread, Yoo-hoo chocolate drink, salad dressing and instant soup. "I can picture the wine country in France and California when I drink wine. "I was looking for that sense of terroir, which is not found in artificial ingredients by design," Ettlinger says. But he had an idea about how to find out. It was a question the veteran food writer couldn't immediately answer. The idea for a book about artificial ingredients was sparked when Ettlinger's 6-year-old daughter asked him, "Where does polysorbate 60 come from, Daddy?" Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats (Hudson Street, $23.95) chronicles Ettlinger's quest to find the source of every ingredient listed on the iconic snack cake's label. So when Steve Ettlinger set out to write a book about processed food, the Hostess Twinkie turned out to be the perfect model. That's the Twinkie for you - it's more than a guilty pleasure, it's a bona-fide cultural touchstone whose shelf life is the stuff of urban legend. Thirty-nine ingredients - and 14 of the country's most common chemicals. Fluffy, creamy melt-in-your mouth filling. ![]()
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