Exemplary writer Joyce Slaton dares to go where some artisan half-baked food scribes should. Take, for example, the turkey she recently prepared as an assignment for CHOW, prepared using "Twinkling Turkey," a recipe from The Twinkies Cookbook of 2006. Yep. She made it. She ate it. It was horrific.
Mixing the Twinkie "shortbread" with crumbled corn muffins and a chopped apple, and then cramming it into a bird and sticking it an an over, Slaton reveals what happened next:
When the turkey emerged, with its crisp, gold skin streaming rivulets of thick white goo that melded with the turkey juices in the roasting pan (ruining any chance I had of making decent gravy), things didn't look good. I lifted a forkful of stuffing to my lips. Oh, dear God: cake doused with poultry grease. I quickly took a bite of turkey to try to erase the taste. Turkey, not too dry, normal flavor. And vanilla—sweet, sweet vanilla—mixing with the taste of roasted bird, the vilest thing I've eaten in a long time.
Read the entire piece. It's well worth your time. Just try not to retch at the thought of that stuffing touching your highly-evolved, frighteninhly-complex palate. Shudder.