May 11 – Eat What You Want Day / Hostess Cupcake Day

Key Points

nPosted on May 11, 2017

Eat What You Want Day is designed to give us all a break from the “should”s and “should not”s that normally concern us as we plan our meals. Nutritionists even give us thumbs up for occasionally relaxing our efforts to eat a variety of fresh, nutritious foods. A once-in-a-blue-moon splurge into processed foods we used to love or super gooey sweet-and-fattening foods from fine bakeries or restaurants can remind us why we do NOT want to eat that way all the time.

nBut, I gotta tell you, if I celebrate “Eat What I Want Day,” I am not going to choose Hostess Cupcakes. That particular snack has no nostalgia for me, and I’m not crazy about them. If I were to have a gooey chocolate cake today, I’d whip up our family recipe for chocolate cherry cake – with nuts – for a much more delicious treat.

Actually, THIS is what I want. Yum!

So…why is today Hostess Cupcake Day? Today is an anniversary – the first Hostess Cupcake was sold on this date in 1919. Hostess has claimed that it was the first snack cake (although Tastykake disagrees).

nWikipedia claims that the “cup” in cupcake came from the inventor’s name, Jeff Cup. But when I checked this unlikely sounding “fact,” I discovered that cupcakes were first mentioned in cookbooks waaaaayyy back in the late 1700s and early 1800s. (I also noticed that the Wikipedia article with the Jeff Cup claim also has the date of his invention wrong – it says the first Hostess Cupcake was produced in 1991, not 1919. I created a Wikipedia account so I could fix that error, but I do want to suggest that you check multiple sources, especially if things seem surprising or unlikely!)