But I think he's smarter and more subversive than that. They think that he is too accepting, too uncritical, and indeed too friendly to the various large corporate interests who show him (or, in many cases, refuse to show him) around their facilities and processes. Some reviewers think that Ettlinger got co-opted into the "Twinkie-Industrial Complex" (as he calls it) during the writing of the book. In doing so, he visits a lot more factories than farms, and encounters many more industrial centrifuges than ploughs. Prompted by a question from one of his kids, Ettlinger, a long-time science and consumer products writer, tells a story of traveling around the world to find out where each of the dozens of ingredients in a Hostess Twinkie comes from-in the order in which they're listed on the package. It's a perfect "Derek's sick" book: a sort of "science lite" non-fiction tome that's fascinating, informative, and non-polemical while still making a political point. While I was in hospital last week, my wife brought me Steve Ettlinger's book Twinkie, Deconstructed (buy using my affiliate code at Amazon Canada or U.S.A.). The textured, firm, sweet dough combined with the intense vanilla creme (not cream, mind you) filling is distinctive and, especially when you're a kid, delicious, yet obviously somehow sinful and wrong and unnatural at the same time. Anyone who's ever eaten a Twinkie remembers the experience, even if it's been years.
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