The weird taste of nostalgia

Have you ever had a wave of nostalgia hit you just from tasting something? I just did.

Hostess Apple Fruit Pies. This is what I'm going to talk about.

Firstly, I am going to say I did not buy these; they were gifted to me. The individual who bought them did that because they were on sale:

Yes, the whole box was literally a dollar when it's usually $4.

I accepted the gift because a) it's feels good when people do nice things for you, b) this is something I never would have bought at full price anyway so the low price didn't bother me, and c) oh my God, Hostess Fruit Pies. Sure, these are the mini version, but whoa...

This fruit pie in full-size version has been a staple food of America for a very long time. How long? Well over 50 years. Yes, the Hostess Fruit Pie has been around for longer than half a century.

The place where I remember seeing the fruit pie as a kid was in convenience stores. I'm pretty sure that every convenience store in America had the pies. You always saw that spinning Hostess pie logo there, which they actually showed in the movie Clerks from 1994:

This is what the present day mini Hostess Fruit Pies look like now:

SO HOW DOES IT TASTE?

Okay, so I receive a box of these things. Before I opened one up, I thought to myself, "Will this taste the same as I remember it?"

Took a bite, and...

...yes. It tastes exactly the same as I remember it.

The crust is always firm and crumbly. Then there's the super thick sugar glaze. Think of it as a glazed doughnut, but dry. This glazing is not only for flavoring but I assume also acts as a preservative.

After that comes the fruit filling. Mine were apple flavored.

Are there any apples in this? Yes:

I was genuinely surprised by that because I was certain there weren't any. I was wrong. However, I can't taste the apple at all because the sugar is so overpowering.

I did eat two of the pies since they were so small, as the mini size is truly mini.

Shortly after eating them, the nostalgia hit happened.

The nostalgia hit was so hard with this one. It is so rare that a taste alone can bring me back in time to when I was a kid so fast. The Hostess Fruit Pie did it.

I am genuinely impressed that Hostess has somehow been able to keep their fruit pies tasting exactly the same for so long. That's a food engineering feat if I've ever seen one. Whatever team at Hostess is responsible for making that happen, pat yourselves on the back because you're definitely getting the job done.

When is the last time I ate a Hostess Fruit Pie? It has to be at least 25 years if not longer.

How often did I eat these things as a kid? Not often. I'd maybe receive one a couple of times a month at best. Even so, I still remember the taste from many years ago.

I never actually bought one of these pies to the best of my memory. As a kid, I'd have one at a friend's house where either the friend or his mom gave me one. In other words, if the pie was there and I was offered it, I accepted - just like what happened with the box of pies I received.

I did love the taste of that pie not for the pie itself but just for the nostalgia hit.

Published 2023 Apr 27